› added 12 years ago

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[TIL] Jazz pianist Fats Waller was kidnapped by Al Capone’s thugs and ordered to play for Capone’s birthday. Three days later, he had earned thousands in tips from Capone and his gangsters.

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ADOOd TIL Dirk Willems was jailed for his devotion to being an Anabaptist. He escaped from prison, but when the guard pursuing him fell through the ice, but Willems turned around to save the guard. Because of this act of heroism, the guard recaptured Willems, and Willems was burned at the stake.
loO4A TIL that the first documented case of a ‘mail order bride’ / ‘catfishing’ was in 1539, when Henry VIII agreed to marry Anne of Cleves based on a painting of her he was sent. He found her so unattractive that he tried to send her back to Germany, and when he couldn’t, divorced her 6 months later.
GY06E TIL about Trasmoz, a town in Spain that was excommunicated for witchcraft in the 13th century, with Pope Julius II also cursing the village in 1511. Neither the excommunication or curse have been lifted. Every June, during the Feria de Brujeria festival, one person is named as 'Witch of the Year'.
wLoao TIL: Mercury was required for felting fabrics, especially hats. Hatters in the 1800’s had chronic mercury toxicity that caused mental instability thus dubbing the term “mad hatters disease” or “mad as a hatter”- and was the primary plight that Louis Carroll developed the mad hatter character around.
R7Ej6 TIL: A 2017 study by statistician Nathan Yau found the career divorce rates. Bartenders, flight attendants , massage therapists, and nurses had the highest at around 45-50%. Meanwhile, actuaries had the lowest at 17%, followed by software developers, engineers, scientists, and eye doctors.