› added 8 years ago

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TIL In 1977, Maureen Weston of the U.K. voluntarily stayed up for a whopping 449 hours(18 days), and made it into the 1978 Guinness Book of World Records. But because staying awake for such long stretches poses so many health risks, Guinness chose to no longer acknowledge sleep deprivation records.

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9nPm TIL in Boston a wife and her unborn child were robbed and killed. The surviving husband gave the vague description of the assailant as “a black man with a husky voice” throwing the city into a police state of racial unrest. It later emerged the white husband killed them for the insurance money.
mx0aP TIL that if the Royal Standard flag is raised above the Buckingham Palace, it means the Queen is home. However, if the Union Jack is raised instead, it means the Queen is somewhere else.
VDVk TIL that while filming “The Princess Bride” in 1987, Cary Elwes (Westley) claims the NYPD had an undercover office follow around Andre the Giant when he went out drinking to make sure Andre didn’t pass out and fall on anyone.
yVBRl TIL the use of blinding laser weapons was outlawed under the 1995 Protocol on Blinding Laser Weapons and prohibited the use of “laser weapons specifically designed, as their sole combat function or as one of their combat functions, to cause permanent blindness to unenhanced vision.”
e06DE TIL that Henry Ford's intense hatred of Jazz drove him to pump tons of money into promoting country music, which was then called "old time music" and helped establish country music culture as we know it today.