› added 9 years ago

98

TIL Babe Ruth once tried cricket. Finding the cricket stance uncomfortable he decided to use his baseball stance. He destroyed the bat and sent the ball flying multiple times, but lost interest in the sport after he heard what the best cricket batsmen were paid: a mere $40 a week.

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RPW4 TIL of a Price is Right episode where a player got the showcase exactly right and was accused of cheating. He studied the reoccurring prizes at home beforehand and memorized their prices.
nneo TIL President John F. Kennedy was a methamphetamine addict and suffered from a delusional “psychotic break” in the Carlyle Hotel.
vnJB TIL HMS Thetis has the rare and unwanted honor of a submarine to have twice sunk and killed her crew. She sank during trials in 1939, drowning 99 men, before being raised and renamed. Sunk again during battle in 1943, her entire second crew was also lost.
Lk9pr TIL King Henry VIII was such a big fan of codpieces (a type of flap or pouch protruding from a man's trousers) that there used to be a wooden statue of him at the Tower of London with a secret mechanism in the floor. When you stepped on the right spot, the royal codpiece would swing forth.
kOZk5 TIL of Stubbins Ffirth who attempted to prove that Yellow Fever wasn't contagious by smearing vomit, blood, saliva, and urine from patients in open wounds on his arms. While he never got sick, it later emerged that the samples he used had come from late-stage patients who were no longer contagious