› added 10 years ago

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TIL Benjamin Guggenheim, heir to mining magnate Meyer Guggenheim, dressed in his finest suit, had a glass of brandy and smoked a cigar as the Titanic sank. “Tell [my wife] I played the game out straight to the end. No woman shall be left aboard this ship because Ben Guggenheim was a coward.”

b6Lj4 TIL former (80s-90s) SNL star Dana Carvey's inspiration for the hugely popular "Church Lady" character was a condescending voice affectation he came up with to deal with hecklers when he was doing stand-up comedy in the years before his break into SNL.
mxb4Y TIL Planthoppers (Issus coleoptratus) has the only mechanical gears ever found in Nature. The first natural design that mechanically functions like our geared systems contrasting the gear-like structures previously found on other animals like the spiny turtle which were purely ornamental.
R5mEj TIL that the theme tune for the show Barney Miller inspired the legendary bassist Cliff Burton to take up the bass guitar
ADp7g TIL that the first Olympics had an event called Pankration, a mix of wrestling and boxing where the only restrictions were of biting/gouging. Breaking digits and dislocating limbs was common, the battle only ending in death/surrender. The Greeks invented sports medicine in response to this event.
Lk9KQ TIL that Demi Moore was the subject of credit card theft after a man took her card on a shopping spree, spending as much as $169,000 while she had no idea any of this was happening for several weeks.