› added 11 years ago

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TIL Geffen Records expected Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’ to sell around 250,000 copies. It was released in September 1991 and by 1992 it was already selling around 300,000 units a week. It has since sold over 30 million copies.

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jN8rp TIL that Caligula once tricked a man into buying 13 gladiators for the high price of 9 million Roman sesterces. He had been selling off some gladiators to replenish the Roman treasury, when he saw a man fall asleep at the auction. He told the auctioneer to consider each of the mans nods as a bid.
9YxDQ TIL legendary basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is an avid Holmesian and authored his own stories based on Mycroft Holmes in prose and comic mediums
5VMWk TIL Ferdinand Verbiest created the first vehicle which moved under its own power in 1672 as an amusement for the Chinese Emperor Kangxi. The steam vehicle was 2 ft in length and built like a five-wheeled cart-like trolley
O8wL TIL an executioner in the 1500’s left a diary detailing all 361 executions he performed in his lifetime
1aQjW TIL When confronted, short-horned lizards shoot streams of blood from the corner of their eyes as a defense mechanism.