› added 5 years ago

92

TIL South African President and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Nelson Mandela has a cameo in the movie Malcolm X.

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P17GV TIL that Parmentier, to encourage the consumption of potatoes which people were wary of, decided to have the field where he grew them guarded by armed men during the day but not at night. Guarding the field increased the value of the crop; at night it was easy to steal tubers, and consumption spread
j6nNn TIL that King Ferdinand VII of Spain was forced to abdicate in 1808 and was replaced by Napoleon’s brother. He lived in luxury in France until Spain ousted the French, restoring him to the throne—only for him to betray the Spanish people who fought to bring him back.
a8pB0 TIL that Tubercolosis was long thought to be associated with poetic and artistic qualities in its sufferers, and was also known as "the romantic disease". People believed that the fever and infections brought by the disease helped artists view life more clearly.
yQo5w TIL of Philoxenus, a Court Poet for the Tyrant of Syracuse, who was jailed & sent to the quarries for voicing a bad opinion about his poetry, but later pardoned, & brought back for another reading. When the tyrant asked how he liked it, he turned to the guards & said "take me back to the quarries."
pANG TIL in ‘Avengers’ Loki called Black Widow a “Mewling Quim”. The rough translation is “Whiny Cunt”.