› added 12 years ago

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TIL Evel Knievel sued Kanye West over damage to his reputation from the ‘Touch the Sky’ music video.

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XE4WX TIL that upon imprisonment American Psychologist Timothy Leary was given psychological tests designed to aid placing inmates in jobs that were best suited to them. Leary himself had designed a few of them and used that knowledge to get a low-security gardening assignment, and escaped.
R5mYa TIL: Diamond engagement rings aren’t an old tradition—they were invented by marketers. In 1938, the diamond company De Beers hired an ad agency to convince people diamonds = love. They launched “A Diamond Is Forever”—a slogan that took off, even though diamonds aren’t rare and are hard to resell.
VM6BG TIL That the word dinosaur wasn't created until 1842
9w766 TIL Frederick W. Smith, the founder of Fedex, saved the company by gambling the last $5,000 they had on blackjack. He won $27,000 and was able to cover the company's $24,000 fuel bill.
QJORX TIL that in the late 1960s, airlines Air India commissioned famous artist Salvador Dali to design an ashtray for the airline. Dali agreed but asked for an elephant as payment. A 2-year-old baby elephant named "big baby" was flown from Bangalore to Cadaques, a small Catalonian town where Dali Lived.