› added 10 years ago

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TIL The TLC network (Home of Honey Boo Boo, The Duggars, Little People, Sarah Palin’s Alaska, etc) was originally created by NASA and the Department of Health, Education and Welfare to provide “real education through the medium of television”.

6y7m TIL that in 2005, despite producing only 1/50th the number of cars as Volkswagen, Porsche attempted to buy VW on the open market. It rapidly amassed 74% of the outstanding shares of its larger German counterpart before running out of money and ultimately being purchased itself by none other than VW.
loRXK TIL About the Bath School disaster, also known as the Bath School massacre, was a series of violent attacks perpetrated by Andrew Kehoe on May 18, 1927, in Bath Township, Michigan. The attacks killed 38 elementary schoolchildren and 6 adults, and injured at least 58 other people.
l7Y45 TIL the band Counting Crows got its name from "One for Sorrow", a British divination nursery rhyme about the superstitious counting of magpies, which are members of the crow family. Singer Adam Duritz heard the rhyme in the 1989 film Signs of Life, which starred his friend Mary-Louise Parker.
WEJ4 TIL during WW1 the British executed soldiers inflicted with Shell Shock (Combat Stress Disorder) on the basis of cowardice because Shell Shock wasn’t considered a psychiatric disorder.
rPPx TIL that anyone who removes Hawaiian rocks from the islands is said to be cursed. Every year people mail back thousands of pounds of rock, sand, and shells to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, many with reports of how their lives were ruined by the curse.