› added 9 years ago

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TIL The day after Robin Williams’s suicide, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline fielded the greatest number of calls in its history.

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ek7D TIL In 1961 the French Police attacked a demonstration of Algerians on a Paris bridge. In the aftermath, many of the wounded were intentionally thrown into the Seine River and left to drown by authorities; 70-200 died.
6E5vJ TIL the lyric “they stab it with their steely knives” from “Hotel California” by the Eagles is a nod to Steely Dan for the free publicity they gave them when the Eagles were mentioned in a lyric from Steely Dan’s song “Everything You Did” which goes “turn up the Eagles, the neighbors are listening”.
XlYD TIL Parsi/Parsee followers feed their dead to vultures in a place called Tower of silence & the family has to stay in the tower of silence for 4 days.No one else is allowed to enter and the rituals are quite secret.
Ym1B TIL the fire hydrant patent was destroyed when the patent office in Washington D.C. caught on fire in 1836
45eJ TIL a man built a cutting-edge stealth boat for the US Navy. Then the government tried to put him out of business.