› added 6 years ago

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TIL map makers will often add fake streets, or even sometimes an entire fictitious town, to their maps in order to catch copyright violators who steal their work.

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W7jr4 TIL that in 1849, Fyodor Dostoevsky was sentenced to death for his alleged anti-government activities with a radical intellectual group. He had already been marched out to the firing squad and was standing before the executioners when the order came through to spare him.
gK5W TIL in 1986 NASA asked Big Bird to enter into a space mission to encourage kids to get interested in space. The big bird suit was too big for the spacecraft meaning he could not fly, the spacecraft that he was meant to be on exploded as it was taking off.
loAl5 TIL William Burroughs shot and killed his wife in Mexico city. He spend 13 days in jail as his brother was bribing mexican officials in order to let him off the hook and delay the trial until he managed to flee back to the US. The incident is what sparked his career as a writer
Ypkyd TIL an elephant destroyed a house in a remote village in Bengal and then turned to head back into the forest when a baby trapped under the rubble began crying. The elephant turned back and gently removed every last bit of debris covering the baby with their trunk.
PYWKG TIL Joseph Mazzello, the boy from "Jurassic Park", was originally going to be the robot boy David in the Stanley Kubrick directed version of "A.I.: Artificial Intelligence".