› added 3 years ago

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TIL that during WWI, conductor Karl Muck, a German-born Swiss citizen and conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, was interned as an enemy alien for more than a year and deported. He had been falsely accused of refusing to play the National Anthem before a concert.

PY1Aw The National Toy Hall of Fame awarded “oldest toy” to the stick. Edward Bleiberg, a curator of Egyptian art at the Brooklyn Museum, says that Neolithic balls made from mud are probably out there, but in any case it would be difficult to determine if they were playthings.
5VggR TIL The Golden Rump was a satirical play so obnoxious that it led to the Theatrical Licensing Act of 1737. The author is unknown, no complete copies of the play exist or may have ever existed. Sir Robert Walpole may have made up a fake play to push his Licensing Act.
VZvm TIL “Suicide” doors, which are hinged at the rear rather than at the front, were popular with mobsters during the 1930s. Supposedly, this was because the design of the doors made it significantly easier to push passengers out of moving vehicles.
6EelZ TIL a therapy cat named Oscar predicted the impending death of some 50 terminally ill patients by napping next to them a few hours before they died. After he accurately predicted 25 deaths, staff started calling family members of residents as soon as they discovered him sleeping close to someone
0de01 TIL that in the thousands of years after the meteor killed off the dinosaurs, the planet was almost entirely dominated by ferns 🌿, and now scientists are trying to replicate the meteor strike in a greenhouse to figure out why!