› added 2 years ago

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TIL The first reference to a space station in fiction was in 1869 and it was made from bricks.

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kK0m TIL That when the mummy of Ramses II was sent to France in the mid-1970s, it was actually issued a legal Egyptian passport. Ramses’ occupation? “King (deceased).”
l7MPB TIL that in the 1600s there was an English chef called Robert May who made pastry ships that featured cannons with real gunpowder, which, when lit for mock battle, caused the ships to explode in a cloud of smoke
womrM TIL that according to a review in the American Journal of Neuroradiology, by the age of 20 37% of people show spinal disc degeneration on imaging. That figure increases to 80% by age 50 and 96% for age 80+.
78DYL TIL in 1984, 13-year-old Andy Smith wrote to President Reagan asking for funds to clean his bedroom after his mom called it a “disaster area”. Raegan sent a tongue-in-cheek reply saying his funds were “dangerously low” and suggested he practice volunteerism instead to solve local problems.
b9Y7j TIL that after Hunter S. Thompson, the author best known for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, died, he was cremated and his ashes were fired out of a cannon. The cannon was placed on top of a 153-foot statue of a fist holding a peyote button, paid for by Johnny Depp.