› added 4 years ago

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TIL Mother’s Day was originally a day for women to protest the killing of their sons and husbands in US Civil War

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w1w6 TIL that Stanley Kubrick was interested in directing a film adaption of Arthur C Clark’s Childhoods End, but the rights were already taken, so he ended up collaborating with Clark on expanding a short story, The Sentinel into what became 2001: A Space Odyssey
v17O8 TIL Many Romans, distrustful of the unreliable Italian post office, make weekly trips to the Vatican just to post their important letters.
awMJy TIL that Nero didn't play a fiddle while Rome burned in 64 A.D., bowed string instruments wouldn't appear in Europe for another 800 years. However several sources place Nero on the roof of his palace during the fire, dressed in stage garb and singing from the Greek epic “The Sack of Ilium.”
0wWk5 TIL of the TomTato, a commercially available graft of potato and tomato, which will grow potatos below ground and tomatos above ground.
R7oa6 TIL Marie Curie's belongings will be radioactive for another 1,500 years and all guests are expected to sign a liability waiver and wear protective gear to get access as the items are contaminated with radium 226. Her body is also radioactive and was placed in a coffin lined with lead.