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TIL After publishing his 1953 National Book Award winning debut novel Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison got to work on his second novel. In 1967 the manuscript of his already-overdue second novel was destroyed in a fire in his home. Ellison did not publish another novel before he died in 1994

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XElrr TIL, in 1970s, South Korea introduced the Minor Offenses Act that mandated limits on men's hair length and women's miniskirt length. Men with long hair were taken to a police station to have their hair cut against their will. Arrested women were forced to wear a 'modest' costume in police station.
R7wpQ TIL, the reason why US has quarters instead of some coin acting as fifths of the US Dollar is because the US currency was based off the Spanish Dollar which had 8 reals per peso, "pieces of eight".
9w4Jp TIL William Sessions (FBI director until 1993) became a lawyer for the Russian mob's international leader
e0bb4 TIL: Entrepreneur Laura Scudder (1881-1959), a pioneer of marking food with freshness dates & of using chips bags was refused insurance by male agents. After decades she gave up a $9 million offer for her company when the buyer wouldn't guarantee workers' jobs. (A later $6M offer did protect them.)
k9x7 TIL On Judge Judy, there have been fabricated cases, with the aim of making money off the show. One such case occurred in 2010, with a group of friends splitting the earnings of $1250, as well as getting a $250 appearance fee each and an all expense paid vacation to Hollywood.