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TIL that Melvil Dewey, creator of the Dewey Classification System, had “a persistent inability to control himself around women”. At Columbia “it was rumored that he asked for their bust sizes with their applications”; not true, but he did ask for photographs because “you cannot polish a pumpkin”.

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KO1rQ TIL Johnny Cash worked as a radio operator in the US Air Force and was the first person to learn of Stalin's death when he received and decoded the Morse code transmission being sent out globally from Moscow.
E4Mx TIL the makers of Sesame Street release a statement saying Bert and Ernie aren’t getting married, and don’t have any sexual orientation. Because they’re puppets.
R50la TIL the origins of the bachata. The bachata (which translates to "party, good time") was condemned by Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo as música cachivache, or music of little worth, due to its associations with poor, working class people.
jGnn TIL Shirley MacLaine’s daughter claims her famous mom believed that her daughter’s father, Steve, was not her real father but a clone of the real one, an astronaut named Paul. For years Steve conned MacLaine into paying him up to $60,000 a month for “Paul’s space travel expenses.”
PYx9E TIL In the 1980's to compete with McDonald's quarter pounder, A&W introduced a third pound burger that did well in taste tests, but it didn't sell well because Americans thought a quarter pound was bigger than a third of a pound.