› added 4 weeks ago

TIL in 1985, Fred Rogers became an Honorary Chairman for the bereavement organization "The Highmark Caring Place". An organization dedicated to help children cope with death. Rogers even filmed a local PSA in 1997 where he encouraged grown ups to bring their children after a family members' passing.

Read more highmarkcaringplace.com

via reddit.com

JE1k TIL when his heir died childless, the estate of British scientist James Smithson passed to the U.S. government. American diplomat Richard Rush was sent to England to collect the money, and returned with today’s equivalent of $11M in gold coins, which was used to found the Smithsonian Institution.
GLR4 TIL of the largest calving event witnessed by man. A field of ice the size of lower Manhattan and taller than skyscrapers broke free from a glacier.
Zp44Y TIL Orion Pictures felt the 1989 film UHF would be more successful if it was PG-rated. To do it, two scenes would have been removed: one where a man gets his thumb cut off with a table saw and one where poodles were thrown out a window. Weird Al refused and did not regret it. No poodles were harmed.
m1e5v TIL Mel Gibson was the Coen Brother's first choice to play The Dude in "The Big Lebowski"
rNea4 TIL about the Malleus Maleficarum, a 15th century book with very detailed instructions on how to tell if someone was a witch