› added 4 years ago

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TIL: NASCAR is rooted in Prohibition bootlegging. They souped up stock cars to outrun the police and that led to competitive racing between gangs.

Read more prohibition.themobmuseum.org

via reddit.com

1nDD TIL While filming in London for POTC: On Stranger Tides, Johnny Depp received a letter from a 9-year old schoolgirl, needing help to ‘mutiny’ against her teachers. He turned up with almost no warning at the school in full Sparrow outfit, but advised against mutiny.
ANDml TIL Achille Devéria, who was famous for painting artists and intellectuals such as Dumas, Walter Scott, Balzac, Victor Hugo, and Franz Liszt, also did a series of pornographic lithographs. Devéria's works were described as showing, "all the morals and aesthetics of the age"
mxBNR TIL buffets are called "vikings" in Japan. This is because a Japanese restaurant manager went to Sweden and liked smörgåsbords so much he copied the idea at his restaurant. This Swedish word was too hard to pronounce in Japanese, so the word "vikings" was used instead after a employee suggested it.
bea TIL that on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, the British lost 57,000 soldiers. For comparison, the US only lost 58,000 during the ENTIRE vietnam war.
gMKVD TIL that, after the 1940 election, unsuccessful challenger Wendell Willkie gave FDR his full support, making wartime foreign trips as FDR's envoy & even discussing the possibility of forming a liberal third-party together after the war (which, unfortunately, neither would live to see the end of).