› added 2 years ago

97

TIL that the mayor of New York City wanted to secede from the Union at the outbreak of the Civil War

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P1Qen TIL in 2023, a stolen van Gogh painting worth millions (€3-6mln), was returned to an art detective’s apartment bubble-wrapped inside an Ikea Bag
yQRbv TIL after the mistress of famed rocket engineer and occultist Jack Parsons began an affair with science fiction writer and eventual founder of Scientology L. Ron Hubbard, Parsons attempted to conjure a new girlfriend by masturbating onto "magical" tablets.
Q8pa TIL the government in Azerbaijan decided to spend close to 1 billion dollars on a song contest instead of giving their citizens clean water.
69GWZ TIL the Triforium, a six-story sculpture near Little Tokyo in Los Angeles, was supposed to track the motions and conversations of people near it and convert them into patterns of light, and also point giant lasers toward the sky spelling out "Los Angeles." But its artist designer ran out of money
kJG9m TIL In 1884, one of the first roller coasters, Switchback Railway in Coney Island, had a top speed of 6mph and cost five cents to ride.