› added 10 years ago

201

TIL Henry Ford received letters from both Clyde Barrow (Bonnie and Clyde) and John Dillinger thanking him for building the V-8 because of how much it helped them get away from the crimes they committed.

KOA6J TIL Israel Kamakawiwoʻole, the man who famously sang "Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World" was an avid supporter for Hawaiian independence.
8aYe4 TIL The very first strike ever recorded in history started in 1152 BC. During the reign of Rameses III in Ancient Egypt, while building a royal necropolis, the workers felt they were being underpaid, so they organized a massive strike. Their wages were actually increased and workers returned to work
rr01 TIL that astrophysicist Carl Sagan and his wife would smuggle books about the history of the Russian Revolution into the USSR so that their colleagues could read them, since recorded history lessons in Russia were actively manipulated by Joseph Stalin at the time.
vP6Y4 TIL the Temple of the Tooth of Kandy hosts a relic of the Buddha. The temple has sustained damage from two bombings, first in 1989 by a Sri Lankan militant organization who was intent on capturing the relic, and again in 1998 by a different Sri Lankan militant organization
K8YQ TIL that comedian Andy Kauffman would threaten to read passages from The Great Gatsby if hecklers got too rowdy. In addition to often following through, he would then ask if the audience wanted to hear a record instead; the record was always of him reading from where he left off.