› added 8 years ago

2796

TIL that the inventor of Vaseline was such a firm believer in its medicinal properties that he claimed to have eaten a spoonful of it a day; During a bout of pleurisy in his 50s, he ordered his nurse to cover him from head to toe in the substance, and soon recovered. He lived to be 94.

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PYDYJ TIL about the Pseudo-Geber corpus, a group of influential works on chemistry and alchemy from the 13th and 14th centuries, whose authors are unknown because they attributed them to the legendary alchemist Geber in an attempt to gain credibility.
nWKBW TIL after Leona Helmsley did not pay her contractors that worked on her Connecticut home, she was investigated for tax evasion, and she received a 16 year sentence. During trial her housekeeper testified that Helmsley said "only the little people pay taxes." She ended up serving 19 months in prison.
N71J1 TIL the Mausoleum of Theodoric in Ravenna, Italy, was built in 520 AD with stones sourced from a quarry in Istria, approximately 400 kilometres (249 mi) away by land journey. The mausoleum's roof consists of a single Istrian carved stone 10 metres (33 ft) in diameter weighing 230 tonnes
P1Wye TIL that during a live firing demonstration 25 spectators were killed and 71 wounded when the pilot mistook them for dummies
jN8JR TIL that a catholic altar boy born in Boston dropped out of school, came to Jamaica and then join an Ethiopian Zion Church which he further transformed into an international drug network. The organization was later indicted in Florida for smuggling over 100 tons of marijuana.