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TIL the CIA offered funding to artists Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and de Kooning so that their abstract work would show how free artists were in the United States compared to the rigid work of the Soviet Union.

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VBOO4 TIL Room 306 of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis is exactly the way it was on April 4th, 1968, complete with bed and food tray, when Martin Luther King was shot. Room 306 was never rented again and preserved as The National Civil Rights Museum
VMjGG TIL an Australian man suffered a sudden and severe form of meningitis at age 29, resulting in a 420-day coma, brain damage, paralysis and later death. The meningitis was caused by a parasite that entered his body 8 years prior after he ate a slug for a dare.
v1jNr TIL The last individual of a species is called an "Endling." When it dies, the species is extinct.
lvRV TIL that a high school student absent due to a doctor’s appointment ended up locking his school down and getting held by the police after the receptionist calling him to confirm his absence thought the Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme song was a bomb threat
oBdQo TIL Jay Leno, who has an impressive car collection, once restored a 1955 Mercedes found in the desert, which is now worth $1.8 Million.