› added 5 years ago

99

TIL about Radithor, radioactive water sold as medicine. It was owned and produced by a college dropout, who marketed it as "A Cure for the Living Dead" and "Perpetual Sunshine". It notably killed a man in 1932, who was buried in a lead coffin, and was still highly radioactive when exhumed in 1965.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

OGnxY TIL three of the child actors who played the Artful Dodger in the stage musical Oliver! in the 1960s went on to become famous rock musicians: Steve Marriott (Small Faces and Humble Pie), Davey Jones (The Monkees), and Phil Collins (Genesis and solo).
VMZMB TIL that Bank of England pound notes each contain a statement of copyright in their design due to the actions of JSG Boggs, a famous artist who used his own hand drawn notes for payments in the 1980's because as artworks they were worth more than the real notes.
Egxdx TIL that Christian Bale had dental work done to make his teeth more perfect for American Psycho (2000) to match the superficial appearance of his character Patrick Bateman
9YbRX TIL what's a "retronym" being something retroactively renamed so it now makes more sense. Like how "analog clock" used to just be a "clock" before digital clocks and how "The Great War" was later renamed "World War I"
xVAmw TIL Folk Singer Phil Ochs was paranoid that the FBI was spying on him, saying, "I'm a folk singer for the FBI" in 1966. In reality the FBI had hundreds of pages on file, but Ochs never committed a federal crime. He continued to be under investigation until his death by suicide in 1976.