› added 8 years ago

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TIL The band Oasis were sued by Coca-Cola and forced to pay $500,000 in damages after it was alleged that the Oasis song “Shakermaker” had lifted words and melody from “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing,” a Coke jingle. Asked about the incident, Noel Gallagher joked “Now we all drink Pepsi.”

6AM8 TIL a “factoid” is different than a “fact” - a factoid is a piece of information that is unsupported, completely out of context, or simply untrue but presented as a fact anyway
OG4PL TIL That during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, a black bear and incorrect wiring sounded a claxon that caused nuclear armed F-106 fighters to scramble from a base in Wisconsin. It was found to be a false alarm as the planes were already rolling towards takeoff.
yQWbe TIL about the Ghost Camaro. During the Bosnian War, a 1979 Chevy Camaro was updated with state of the art equipment by US Military and was used to take much needed supplies to civilians.
Ge45 TIL that pinball was illegal for 30 years in many major US cities. Politicians thought that pinball was a game based on chance and therefore must have been a mob-run scam. The ban ended when a master pinball player was called in front of a committee to demonstrate his skill.
rEg4 TIL Christopher John Boyce was a convicted spy for the Soviet Union sentenced to 40 years in prison. In 1980, he escaped federal prison and was on the run for 1yr and 8 months, during which time he committed 17 bank robberies and studied aviation so he could eventually flee to the Soviet Union.