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TIL David Bowie was born Davy Jones but changed his name to Tom Jones to avoid confusion with the Monkees front-man. Two weeks later, Tom Jones released ‘It’s Not Unusual’ forcing him to change it again, this time to Bowie.

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69bDZ TIL sick Crimean War soldiers first called Florence Nightingale “The Lady with the Hammer” for breaking into locked storage cabinets for medicine, but a journalist found it unladylike and popularized her enduring title, “The Lady with the Lamp” instead.
GxeQ TIL, Burt Munro, a motorcycle racer & subject of the movie, ‘The World’s Fastest Indian’ (portrayed by Sir Anthony Hopkins), created the under-1,000 cc world record of 296.2593 km/h (184.087 mph) at Bonneville in 1967, which stands to this day. He was 68 years old and was riding a 47-year-old bike.
l7o55 TIL the term 'computer' used to mean humans who performed tedious, repetitive calculations by hand. Many of whom were women and some became the early programmers in a time when men refused to code because it was seen as "woman's work"
4X6PR TIL that Rachel Carson, the scientist that discovered DDT's effect on wildlife, was seen as a threat to agricultural business. To discredit her, the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture wrote a letter to President Eisenhower arguing that since she was unwed and attractive, she must have been a Communist.
v1v4D TIL that Mount Everest is not the tallest mountain on Earth if measured from base to summit (Mauna Kea in Hawaii is). Mount Everest is only the "tallest" in terms of summit altitude above sea level.