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TIL A radioactive energy drink called "Radithor" was sold in the US market for a decade in the 1920s. Radium 226 and 228 isotopes we’re used, and the expensive product claimed to cure impotence, among other ills. Some of the more prominent users had to be buried in lead coffins.

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5V0lQ TIL that Mecca was laid siege in 1979 by a man who thought he was the prophesied Mahdi (the eschatological basis of Frank Herbert's Muad'Dib) and this attack triggered the conservative transformation away from liberal reforms, for Saudi culture, for decades.
xVXog TIL that Mozart was one of the first to pirate music. He heard Miserere while in a chapel and transcribed the entire composition from memory later that day.
1dV TIL that Louis Armstrong suffered from severe calluses on his lips due to his excessive trumpet-playing. So, he cut them off with a razor blade.
OoY71 TIL in the 1940s, AT&T sued Harry Tuttle for inventing the Hush-A-Phone—a device that silenced phones from eavesdroppers. AT&T argued the “device hadn’t been installed by their company” and the FCC voted in AT&T’s favor, but Tuttle continued to fight the case in open court and eventually won.
x6J4w TIL that “Big in Japan” was written by Alphaville’s lead singer about two of his junkie friends. "That line has a certain meaning…. 'I'm not a loser because in Japan I'm really big.' It's the lie of the loser and it fit perfectly into the story of these junkies, in a very tragic way…”