› added 10 years ago

140

TIL Jim Downey, who played the high school principal in Billy Madison, was a longtime writer on SNL. His famous “May God have mercy on your soul” speech at the end of the film was based on a speech Downey used to give to Chris Farley when Farley presented terrible ideas in the SNL writers’ room.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

Bgewy TIL Isabel Godin des Odonais (1728–1792) was separated from her husband in South America for over 20 years due to colonial politics. She was the only survivor of a 42-person, 3,000-mile expedition through the Amazon Basin to rejoin him. They reunited in 1770 and later returned to France.
b9am0 TIL that that the most expensive medicinal fungus in the world is found only in the Himalayas at an altitude of 3000 to 5000 meters. The yarsagumbas are known for their aphrodisiac property and for this reason they are popularly known as Himalayan Viagra. The cost per gram is about 100 $.
5VmJD TIL that during WWII, Jewish physicist Niels Bohr was smuggled out of Denmark via Sweden to work on the Manhattan project. However, he refused to go to America unless Sweden granted asylum to Denmark’s Jews. 99% of them were saved.
wWyo TIL that the very unmuscular Australian comedian Hamish Blake once won the heavyweight category in the Mr New York State bodybuilding competition after entering as a joke, as he was the only competitor heavy enough to qualify.
OoO6Y TIL having shot a man in the head, Andrew Lyons's lawyer argued for manslaughter. The victim died when a surgeon transplanted the heart from the brain-dead victim: Andrew's bullet wasn't fatal. Following the case California issued a law allowing surgeons to transplant organs from brain-dead patients