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TIL a teenage Mozart, while visiting Rome, heard “Miserere Mei, Deus” and copied it on paper by ear. The Vatican threatened excommunication for distributing the work, but when the pope heard of the prodigy transcribing it by ear, he showered the 14 year old with praise.

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ZENp TIL Madonna leaked a fake version of her album to pirates where every song was a loop of her saying “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Then a hacker posted the real songs on her own site for everyone to download.
nWZJP TIL in the 90s the CIA tried to discredit the US Ambassador to Guatemala after they bugged her room and heard her talking lovingly to a woman named Murphy, and accused her of having a lesbian affair with the woman to Washington. There was no affair she was talking to her poodle named Murphy.
wowVY TIL Catacomb saints are skeletons exhumed from Roman catacombs and decorated with gold and jewels to serve as "replacement relics" for those destroyed during the Protestant Reformation. It is unlikely that any of those skeletons are actually of the people they are reputed by tradition to be.
yQGZa TIL the city of Crush, Texas was a temporary one day city created as a publicity stunt to exhibit two trains go full speed and collide. The impact caused engine boilers to explode resulting in a shower of flying debris on 40000 spectators. It killed 2 or 3 people and caused numerous injuries.
oRVoK TIL that Harriet, a 176-year-old Galapgos tortoise, reportedly belonged to both Charles Darwin and Steve Irwin.