› added 9 years ago

80

TIL Mike Kurtz, an american burglar, found out that eating common soap could produce the effect of ill health. His sudden and unexplainable weight loss and other symptoms baffled the prison doctors and he was able to fool officials that he was dying and received a pardon.

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g0AX TIL that a boy named Anton Salonen caused an international incident after his Finnish father, with the help of Finnish diplomats, kidnapped his son back after the boys Russian mother kidnapped the boy in the first place.
oEEo TIL in 1995 Dave Grohl was offered the opportunity to be a full-time, permanent drummer for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Dave turned down the offer to pursue the Foo Fighters instead.
9wYNG TIL that there is a strong positive correlation between how fast someone walks and the population of the city that they're from. If a city is 10x larger than another, people will walk 24% faster on average.
woYG1 TIL that J. M. Barrie "invented" the name Wendy in his novel Peter Pan. Although it saw some minor use a a nickname for centuries, as a given name it was only popularized by the novel. Barry was inspired by his friend's daughter, who called him her "fwiendy-wendy", as she could not pronounce "r's".
e6jg TIL that James Doohan who played Scotty in Star Trek was shot six times during D-Day by friendly fire. 4 times in his leg, once in his chest, and once in his right middle finger. A cigarette case stopped the round in his chest which most likely would have been fatal.