› added 9 years ago

53

TIL that sideburns are named after American Civil War General, General Burnside.

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0YgR TIL The British slang for sausages is “Banger” because of WWI food shortages. Meat shortages forced sausages to be made with high water content, causing them to burst when being cooked, hence the name.
rNXAw TIL about the Fallen Astronaut, a 3.5 in/8.9 cm aluminum sculpture. It is a stylized figure of an astronaut in a spacesuit, intended to commemorate the astronauts and cosmonauts who have died in the advancement of space exploration. It was placed on the Moon by the crew of Apollo 15 in 1971
m1OrR TIL Peter Steele of Type O Negative appeared as a nude centerfold of Playgirl in 1995. Steele regretted the decision after finding out only 23% of the magazine subscribers were female. Stating “Not that I'm homophobic, but it was certainly irritating” about his decision.
xyLo TIL that a man “blinked a book”. Jean-Dominique Bauby who suffered from the Locked-in syndrome, could control only his left eyelid. By blinking his eye, he slowly dictated one alphabetic character at a time and, by doing so, was able to write his memoirs (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly).
EVRw TIL that when Sylvester Stallone was pitching his new script in the 70’s, the studio refused to make it with Stallone in the lead. He turned down $300k with only $106 in his bank account until the studio caved and made it with him as the star. That film was Rocky.