› added 9 years ago

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TIL Elvis Costello was banned from SNL after switching from “Less than Zero” to “Radio, Radio” mid performance. SNL’s producer gave him the finger for the duration of the song.

p8NOe TIL the longest car in the world was 100 feet long, had 26 wheels, a jacuzzi, diving board, king-sized water bed, and a helicopter landing pad, and was called the ‘American Dream’.
8aboV TIL Richard Valenzuela, better known as Ritchie Valens, was born in California and only spoke English at home. Valens had to learn the lyrics phonetically to record "La Bamba" in Spanish.
wLd6o TIL about “concussionist" R.G. Dyrenforth, hired by the U.S. government in 1891 to make it rain over Texas by blasting water from the skies with explosives. Despite being "certain that rain can be caused by explosion in mid-air," he just managed to catch all manner of things on fire with his kites.
b9wpp TIL about the practice of widow's succession. This was a practice used by several countries in the early 20th century were if a politician died in office they would be succeeded by their widow. The practice resulted in some of the earliest women to hold political office in modern times.
R74G9 TIL an MIT researcher was concerned about the censorship of human genitalia on extraterrestrial messages, so he recorded & transmitted the sound of ballerinas' vaginas contracting. The Air Force terminated the project, but test messages made it to two nearby stars in 1996 & 1998.