› added 10 years ago

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TIL John Quincy Adams was elected the 6th President of the United States despite losing both the popular and electoral vote. No one won the majority, so the election went to the House of Representatives, where Adams had more friends than his competition.

R7VQa TIL about steam train driver Wally Oaks who heroically gave his life to stop his train after an accident engulfed the engine in flames. He saved all passengers and was posthumously awarded a George Cross for bravery.
yBww TIL that the Harvard Law Review published a satirical article mocking a feminist legal scholar on the anniversary of her violent murder and distributed it its annual gala, to which her husband had been invited
x6LvB TIL Of the Curse of the Ninth, the superstition that a composer will die before finishing their tenth symphony. Beethoven and Schubert both died after their ninth symphonies. Gustav Mahler attempted to beat the curse with musical structural changes but he also died before finishing his tenth.
ZWBD TIL that in 1942 a Finnish sound engineer secretly recorded 11 minutes of a candid conversation between Adolf Hitler and Finnish Defence Chief Gustaf Mannerheim before being caught by the SS. It is the only known recording of Hitler’s normal speaking voice. (11 min, english translation)
v1Z77 TIL famed EC Comics artist John Severin refused to draw any horror stories for moral reasons. When publisher William Gaines suggested he was making excuses and just couldn't draw the style, Severin drew something so horrific that it gave Gaines nightmares.