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TIL that chess grandmaster Nigel Short played a series of 8 online chess games against an anonymous user and lost every single game. He believes the anonymous player was the legendary Bobby Fischer, who was living in exile in Iceland and hadn't played professionally in years.

Read more telegraph.co.uk

via reddit.com

P0yJ TIL early in Ella Fitzgerald’s career, she was denied the right to sing at a club on account of her race. One of her biggest fans insisted she be booked, which launched Ella’s career. The fan was Marilyn Monroe.
Yp8Gd TIL witches were never depicted with green skin before the 1939 Wizard of Oz film. Witches were commonly depicted as red or orange beforehand. The Wicked Witch of the West was not described as green in the book, and she was only made green in the film because it looked really good in technicolor.
bpna TIL that Abraham Lincoln’s only living son Robert, was at both Garfield and McKinley’s assassinations but not at his father’s.
epAKJ TIL Peljidiin Genden 9th Prime Minister of Mongolia was brought to Moscow to meet Stalin and shouted "You bloody Georgian, you have become a virtual Russian Czar". Genden then reportedly slapped Stalin, broke his pipe, and hinted that Mongolia was considering an alliance with the Empire of Japan.
DQoYV TIL about the ancient Mesopotamian practice of using a substitute king to protect the real king from evil omens. The real king would go into hiding, and rites were performed to transfer the danger onto the substitute. At the end of the ritual, the substitute is put to death.