› added 10 months ago

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TIL that Stephen Hawking had to be convinced to drop every equation in the manuscript of A Brief History of Time except for E = mc^2 because supposedly every equation would cut the number of people interested in half.

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W7dYN TIL the city of Gresham, Oregon has a tree serial killer dubbed "The Gresham Lumberjack" who has been going around randomly chopping down hundreds of trees in the vicinity for no known reason. The culprit still remains at large.
D1mAr TIL the game Bravely Default, an ultra-traditional jrpg released in 2012, was so successful globally, Square Enix had to reconsider their strategy of game making, as they were planning to only make action-focused, real-time based games to appeal the western audience.
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.
BPrd TIL President Lincoln signed a mandatory draft law that allowed the rich to buy their way out.
DewP TIL that Chinese prisoners are forced to farm World of Warcraft gold - there are thought to be 100,000 full-time gold farmers in the country.