W7bw4 TIL that famous authors C.S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley died on the same exact day that JFK was assassinated and there is a fiction novel about all three of them meeting in purgatory.
9wXVD TIL that the Microraptor had four wings with fully feathered arms and legs for gliding. This flight setup doesn’t exist in any species alive today. It lived during the Early Cretaceous, about 120 million years ago.
nWMEG TIL Blade Runner (the movie) got its name from a completely unrelated novel, which itself got a treatment by William S. Burroughs, so it had to be licensed from both authors
4kWRa TIL that Hōjō Masako, the widow of Japan’s first shōgun, became a nun after his death but ended up running the shogunate from behind the scenes, crushing political enemies, choosing new shōguns, and shaping Japanese politics for decades. History remembers her as the “Nun Shōgun.”
x6nyB TIL The Population of Thessaloniki, Greece was ~68% Jewish During the Ottoman Era, ca. 1613 AD; Today there are an estimated 1200 Jews Living in the City
epbaE TIL Napoleon's great-nephew created the Bureau of Investigations (now FBI)
VBbRm TIL in 2024 the parents of a boy who had about 1/3 of his penis cut off by a doctor during a botched procedure was awarded $100 million by a jury, which was twice the amount the parents had asked for.
X0b6P TIL The existence of planets outside our solar system wasn't confirmed until 1992
OGvy4 TIL in 2024 an Austrian neurosurgeon was fired after she let her 13-year-old daughter drill a hole into a patient’s skull during a surgery. Although the surgery was a success, one other specialist was also fired, and at least five other people involved in the procedure were investigated.
69w68 TIL that Luke Short, a scout, dispatch rider, gambler, and saloon owner, became central to the Dodge City War and later helped reopen the Long Branch.
wo4ZP TIL the 1985 charity single "We are the World" originally featured the line "There's a chance we're taking, we're taking our own lives". However, Lionel Richie decided to change the last part to "We're saving our own lives" due to concern that the line would be considered a reference to suicide.
R5y44 TIL the Ouija board named itself. Spiritualist Helen Peters Nosworthy asked the board what it wanted to be called during a séance in 1890, and o-u-i-j-a was the answer. It was patented under this name in 1891.