› added 4 years ago

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TIL that songwriter Robert Sherman was struggling to write a catchy song for Julie Andrews to sing in Mary Poppins. When Robert's son received the polio inoculation, and he discovered the medicine was put on a sugar cube, he was inspired to write "A Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Medicine Go Down."

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wo5OY TIL a Polish farmer named Franciszek Honiok is considered the first victim of World War II after being murdered on the evening of 31 August 1939 as part of a Nazi plot to provide a justification for the invasion of Poland.
O5Pa TIL of the “Great Stink”, where the smell of human waste in London was so powerful it affected the work of the House of Commons. Plans were made to evacuate but heavy rains ended the crisis.
X0PWR TIL parents of students in Quebec filed a $1.5 million lawsuit against an art teacher & his school board because students reportedly found their classroom artwork available for purchase on the teacher's personal site with some items listed for as much as $174.
P14NE TIL of Rene Lima-Marin, a Colorado inmate who was mistakenly released in 2008, 90 years early from a 98-year sentence. After six years of rebuilding his life with a family and steady job, he was returned to prison in 2014, raising issues of fairness and rehabilitation.
GMZE TIL: The “tradition” of spending several months salary on an engagement ring was a marketing campaign created by De Beers in the 1930’s. Before WWII, only 10% of engagement rings contained diamonds. By the end of the 20th Century, 80% did.