› added 11 months ago

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TIL, that Painless Parker was a street dentist that created the Parker Dental Circus, a traveling medicine show with his dental chair on a horse-drawn wagon while a band played. The band attracted large crowds and hid the moans and cries of patients who were given whiskey or a cocaine solution.

YprQZ TIL about Above Znoneofthe, a Canadian politician and perennial candidate. Sheldon Bergson changed his name and included a silent "Z" so his name would be placed last on alphabetical ballots. For the first race in which he ran as Znoneofthe the candidates were listed by their first names.
5MbQ TIL boxer Sugar Ray Robinson backed out of his welterweight fight because he had a vision he’d kill his opponent, Jimmy Doyle. After being convinced by a priest and minister to fight, Robinson killed his opponent due to head injuries.
J1MAQ TIL about Janet Parker, the last person to die of smallpox in 1978. She worked above one of the last labs in its last months of permission to study the virus. The day Janet's viral strain was confirmed, Henry Bedson, the doctor in charge of the lab, took his own life.
oROlK TIL 71 year old Bernard Gore was supposed to meet his wife and daughter in a mall in Sydney after first doing a little shopping himself. Instead, he exited a mall door leading to a stairwell labyrinth and was found dead 3 weeks later failing to find his way out.
4pDa TIL that Myspace was purchased by News Corp for $580 million in 2005 and sold by News Corp for $35 million in 2011