Post * xVk6w — Curious Curator

› added 6 years ago

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TIL William McGonagall's poetry was so bad, he read it as part of a circus sideshow. He was eventually legally barred from performing because the audience would riot.

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dDew7 TIL about the Region-Beta Paradox, the phenomenon that people can sometimes recover more quickly from more distressing experiences than from less distressing ones.

nevZr TIL the 17th century philosopher Baruch Spinoza was one of the first figures to publicly declare themselves as Atheists.

j6K5M TIL that in 1917, when the US Army tested what later became known as the M1917 Browning Machine Gun, it was able to fire non-stop for 48 minutes and 12 seconds (over 21,000 rounds) without a malfunction. It went into service in late WWI, and is still used by some irregular forces today.

grlX4 TIL that Andy Reid (whose Kansas City Chiefs just won the Super Bowl again) was a very large child. In 1971, the future head coach appeared on 'Monday Night Football' for an athletic competition. Already 6'2" tall and weighing 220 lb, Reid was so large that he wore a real NFL player's uniform.

wL66W TIL - There was a guy in 1917 who flipped a urinal sideways, signed it with a pseudonym and called it art ("The Fountain"). Now other artists try to competitively pee into it in museums. "The Fountain" was voted most important work of 20th century art by 500 art professionals; surpassing Picasso.