› added 9 years ago

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TIL that Crassus, a Roman general and also one of the richest men in history, used to purchase buildings on fire for a very low price and then put the fires out with his trained army of 500 slaves and rebuild them. If the owners refused to sell their property, he would not engage in firefighting.

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Z1dR TIL in the early ‘80s (before the HIV epidemic), there was a popular brand of appetite suppressant candy called “Ayd’s”. Their unfortunate marketing slogan? “Lose weight with Ayd’s!!”.
AoDa TIL while recording “I Put A Spell On You”, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins was so intoxicated, he blacked out with no memory of the session afterwards. In order to perform it the same way, he had to relearn the song from the drunken recording. It became his biggest commercial success.
R7oo9 TIL - It is well documented that for centuries, Koreans ate much more food than their Asian neighbors. A 19th century visitor wrote: "When it comes to serving fruits, for example with large peaches, even a person with the most restraint eats around ten; it is not uncommon to see a person eating 30".
QJ8Kp TIL whenever Abraham Lincoln felt the urge to tell someone off, he would compose a “hot letter.” He’d pile all of his anger into a note, “put it aside until his emotions cooled down,” Doris Kearns Goodwin once explained on NPR, “and then write: ‘Never sent. Never signed.’
R5lXw TIL Chico Bouchikhi of Gipsy Kings, Brother was assassinated by Mossad agents in a small Norwegian town due to a case of mistaken identity.