› added 6 months ago

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TIL a man was sentenced to two years in jail after being caught cheating at poker by wearing infrared contact lenses that enabled him to see cards that were premarked with invisible ink. Security noticed his $95K winning streak because he twice folded hands that suggested he knew the dealer's cards.

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nW7p9 TIL that Neil Armstrong was the subject of a hoax claiming that he converted to Islam after hearing the call to prayer on the Moon. Despite being officially refuted, the rumor persisted partly because of the confusion between Armstrong's residence in Lebanon (Ohio) to Lebanon the country.
eg9J TIL Roger Ebert said the 2004 film National Treasure was “so silly that the Monty Python version could use the same screenplay, line for line.”
7rZX7 TIL a woman in Mexico named Ines Ramirez performed a C-section on herself after hours of painful contractions. Fearing that her baby would be stillborn, she drank 2 cups of high-proof alcohol and used a kitchen knife to make the incision. Both the mother and the baby survived.
mxyrY TIL Soviet gymnast Elena Mukhina, widely touted as the next great gymnastics star until 1979. Her coach rushed her recovery from an injury and pressured her to perform a dangerous move (the Thomas salto), which caused her to break her neck, leaving her a lifelong quadriplegic. She died at 46 in 2006
8eR7K TIL that Coretta Scott King graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music and was a classically trained singer who gave Freedom Concerts to raise money for the Civil Rights Movement.