› added 6 years ago

72

TIL the original writer and singer of the the lion sleeps tonight was only paid the equivalent of 2 US dollars but surprisingly his heirs were able to fight for justice using a 1940's British law.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

WklR8 TIL in 2011, Roger Federer was ranked 2nd for being the "most respected, trusted, and admired person in the world" by a study of 50k people, across 25 countries. He was only surpassed by Nelson Mandela, but beat out the likes of Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Steve Jobs, and many others.
gnB4 TIL Annie Taylor was the first person to successfully descend Niagara Falls. She used a custom barrel stuffed with a mattress. She tested it by sending a cat over the falls. It survived and 2 days later she made the journey…on her 63rd birthday.
PoKL TIL the small cloth placed over the back of your chair on a plane or a train is called an ‘antimacassar’. They are so named because they were originally used to protect the fabric of the chair from macassar oil; a very famous hair product in the Victorian period.
dAgr TIL the Japanese arcade game Space Invaders was so popular it caused a coin shortage.
KgbQ TIL that in 1962 a Japanese man became the first person to sail across the Pacific solo. He was arrested when he arrived in San Francisco for not having a passport or money.