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TIL that Marion Stokes built an archive of network, local, and cable news, in her home, one tape at a time, recording every major (and trivial) news event until the day she died in 2012 at the age of 83 of lung disease.

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nemE7 TIL Gen. Franz Halder of the High Command warned Hitler of huge Soviet troop concentrations near Stalingrad and certain disaster, but Hitler criticized him for his defeatist mentality. Halder walked out of the meeting and never returned. Five months later, Germany was defeated at Stalingrad.
VMx0G TIL Elagabalus was an emperor of Rome who wore makeup and wigs, preferred to be called a lady, and offered vast sums to any physician who could provide him with a vagina. The historian Dio referred to him with feminine pronouns, and he is the first recorded person to seek sex reassignment surgery.
yQagl TIL in 2000, Canadian opposition leader Stockwell Day proposed referendums on internet petitions if they reached 350,000 signatures - or about 3% of the population. A comedian proposed that Stockwell Day legally change his first name to Doris. It got over 370,000 signatures
616m TIL the very first reported death caused by video game was in 1982 - a 18 year old played the arcade classic Berzerk, made it to the Top Ten list twice in one sitting - and then collapsed and died from a heart attack after putting another quarter in the machine
yQ8oV TIL Ernest Hemingway had often complained the FBI was tracking him, but was dismissed by friends and family as paranoid. Years after his death released FBI files showed he had been on heavy surveillance, with the FBI following him and bugging his phones for nearly the final 20 years of his life