› added 6 years ago

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TIL A guy quit his job and practiced golf for 6,000 hours to put the theory of "intensive practice" to the test and become a pro golfer

8p8 TIL In 1980, a brutal riot took place at the New Mexico State Penitentiary. At one point, the rioters broke into the isolated prisoners cellblock (containing sex criminals, mentally unstable, prison snitches, etc.) where they brutally tortured and killed at least 33 prisoners.
L7xr TIL of Leslie Coffelt, who was killed defending Harry Truman from an assassination attempt. Shot by an assassin 4 times, Coffelt propped himself up against a guard booth and fired one shot, hitting the assassin in the head and killing him. Coffelt collapsed immediately and died four hours later.
wLGG6 TIL that Ford almost bought Ferrari in the early 60's, but Enzo Ferrari killed the deal when he learned he wouldn't oversee the racing division anymore. Henry Ford II was so pissed that he directed his engineers to build a car that would beat Ferrari at Le Mans, which it did from 1966–1969.
xV4O1 TIL that John Williams, the legend film composer (Star Wars, Indiana Jones) had problems with the musical timings in E.T.’s BMX chase scene. Steven Spielberg told him to record the music just as he wanted, he then edited the chase sequence around Willams’s Oscar winning soundtrack.
rER1 TIL that, as an experiment, Mass. transit police placed cardboard-cutout cops near two bike racks in Cambridge. Bike theft dropped 67% in a month.