› added 12 years ago

100

TIL that the gold records the RIAA gives to artists are actual gold-plated vinyl records, but they often were made from any record that was handy. Rarely was the plated record actually of the song or album being commemorated.

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grWN7 TIL that John Walton was the 4th richest person in the US when he died in a plane crash. The plane was an inexpensive home-built that he improperly fixed himself.
0dA95 TIL a man in Thailand embedded magnetic plates in his fingertips in order to cheat at Hi-Lo, an Asian variant game of dice.
JOE8 TIL that Thomas Edison was an advocate for monetary reform in the United States. He was ardently opposed to the gold standard, and debt based money. Famously, he was quoted in the New York Times stating “Gold is a relic of Julius Caesar, and interest is an invention of Satan.”
rKw0 TIL Green Day payed to host a schools prom at a different location when the school board cancelled it because they didn’t want same sex couples at their prom
R1W9 TIL Neil Armstrong’s astronaut application form arrived a week past the deadline. His friend Dick Day saw the late arrival of the application and slipped it into the pile before anyone noticed.