› added 11 years ago

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TIL Stanford University’s Band has been banned from several campuses and even Disneyland. Some of their offenses include mocking a case of a missing girl at Southern Cal during halftime, and playing outside OJ Simpson’s trial.

b9G8E TIL that the Oscar-winning screenplay for Sense and Sensibility (1996) was almost lost due a bug on Emma Thompson’s computer. Desperate, she asked her longtime friend Stephen Fry for help, who spent seven hours recovering the script.
8a7xb TIL that 31 inmates of Louisiana's Angola prison cut their Achilles' tendons to protest deplorable living conditions. This prompted national news agencies to write exposé stories on inmate life, leading to prison reform.
OK1L TIL the world’s longest-running laboratory experiment “demonstrates the fluidity and high viscosity of pitch, a derivative of tar once used for waterproofing boats.” In 1930 pitch was left in a glass funnel to drip out and has only dropped 9 times: about once every 10 years.
R59Q8 TIL that when mating, the female Serromyia biting midge (no-see-um) drives her tongue like a drill into the male's head, pumping him full of acid. His insides melt, and she sucks him dry. The male's genitals break off, blocking the female from future mating.
N7B1b TIL, Max Yasgur who hosted the '69 Woodstock concert, received only $10K, shunned by his neighbors, gave free water and milk to guests and was hailed. He died 4 years later and received a full page obituary in Rolling Stone as a non musician.