› added 12 years ago

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TIL Aldous Huxley & C.S. Lewis died hours apart. Their deaths were overshadowed by news of the JFK assassination, which occurred on the same day

PYjMn TIL Lucky Rich from Australia was the most tattooed man. He has spent over 1,000 hours having his body modified by hundreds of tattoo artists.
R7nK9 TIL the Guinness Book of World Records has vehemently refused to validate any attempt at the world record for the longest time spent awake, believing that it's dangerous to human health. The current record is 264 hours or around 11 days, which was set by a high school student as a science project
E1w77 TIL a Belgian mayor hired a DJ to play a music set as a way to drive out some visiting gypsies with loud music. The plan backfired as the gypsies just came out to party, the mayor received international bad press and, since no one had bothered to pay necessary composers’ rights, a 100 euro fine.
b6nnZ TIL when Marie Curie fell into a depression, Einstein wrote her a letter telling her he felt lucky to have met her, and, referring to the newspaper articles constantly attacking her, he advised her “to simply not read that hogwash, but rather leave it to the reptile for whom it has been fabricated.”
x61Yo TIL of the field recordings of Alan Lomax, a folklorist. He travelled recording a wide spectrum of musical performances, stories, jokes and personal narratives for the US Library of Congress in the 1930s. His life's work is now digitally archived.