TIL Mark Twain made a substantial amount of money throughout his career but lost most of it. He lost the equivalent of $9,000,000 on a typesetting machine investment, his publishing company failed after selling only 200 copies of one of his books, & he was forced to sell his house in Connecticut.
TIL Snoop Dogg’s real name is Cordozar Calvin Broadus Jr. His “Snoop Dogg” nickname came from his mother who thought he looked like Snoopy from the Peanuts
TIL Mel Gibson was not born in Australia. He was born in Peekskill, New York, an hour north of Manhattan. His family moved to Australia when he was 12.
TIL cryptanalyst Elizebeth Friedman broke 4,000 codes during WWII and brought down a Nazi spy ring by cracking an early version of the Enigma machine with pen and paper
TIL during the Depression, Frederick Mellinger, was fired from a job for proposing they sell black women's underwear instead of the basic white. He then joined the Army and found that men wanted to see pin-up girls in more risque lingerie. This caused him to make his own exotic line of lingerie.
TIL of the Sook Ching, a systematic purge of Chinese Singaporeans during the Second World War carried out by the Imperial Japanese Kenpeitai. Between 5000-25000 people are estimated to have been killed.
TIL In a study of 9400 people, switching from animal fat to vegetable (corn) oil was beneficial for cholesterol, but it did not have any effect on heart disease.
TIL in 2018 Nabisco freed its animal cracker mascots from their cages, changing a box design that was used since 1902.
TIL that astronauts inside the ISS are not experiencing lack of gravity. At that altitude, gravity is about 90% that of the surface of Earth. The station is simply in an endless state of freefall which is what makes things float inside it.