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TIL As Beethoven's deafness began to affect his ability to compose properly, he sawed the legs off of his piano and used the floor as a "sounding board." He would lie on his wooden floor and hit different piano notes at various volumes to feel their vibrations to see if they fit into his composition

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VMlpZ TIL Pythagoras had a weird cult that lasted for centuries after his death. They worshiped numbers, invented the first robot (a steam-powered pigeon) and were afraid of beans because they cause excessive flatulence. He was murdered when he was chased to a bean field and refused to cross it.
N7N56 TIL the creator of Bumfights went onto Dr.Phil dressed as Dr.Phil and claimed they both took advantage of people in the same way
Y7LWd TIL The Kingdom of Brandenburg, an impoverished electorate of Medieval Germany actually tried to colonize Africa.
7rKDr TIL Botox is derived from botulism. “Sausage poison” is what Justinus Kerner called the pathogen in the 1820s; he had observed the paralytic effects after a single giant sausage sickened 13 people, six died. Decades later, named it Bacillus botulinum, after botulus, the Latin word for sausage.
Br7Ex TIL In 1904, tea bags were invented accidentally. The inventor, Thomas Sullivan, decided that it was cheaper to send small samples to potential customers in silk bags instead of boxes. The recipients believed they were meant to be dunked and soon Sullivan was flooded with orders for his “tea bags.”