TIL that the Kingdom of Kongo was one of the longest lived in history, lasting in some way or another from c. 1390 to 1914 - about as much as the Western Roman Empire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Kongo
TIL the director the French Connection paid an official at the New York Transit Authority a $40,000 bribe to overlook the rules and allow the famous chase sequence to be filmed.
http://www.wnyc.org/story/htt-william-friedkin/
TIL the direct or the French connection paid an official at the New York Transit Authority a $40,000 bribe to overlook the rules and allow the famous chase sequence to be filmed.
http://www.wnyc.org/story/htt-william-friedkin/
TIL the featured speaker at Gettysburg was Edward Everett, not Lincoln. He gave a 2 hour speech preceding the Gettysburg Address. After, he wrote to Lincoln "I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Everett
TIL that in the UK, a thick beef paste called Bovril is spread on toast or reconstituted into “beef tea.” It’s name comes from the Latin bovinus, for ox; and vril, a substance from a late 1800s novel used by a secret master race to give them special powers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bovril
TIL that Irving Berlin is the only Academy Award winner in history who presented the award to themselves. He won for writing ‘White Christmas’, and declared that opening the envelope was extremely awkward. The rules were then changed to prevent this ever happening again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irving_Berlin
TIL The numbers on a lottery ticket, like for the Powerball or MegaMillions, do not have to be in the order it was drawn to at least win something.
https://www.powerball.com/faqs/
TIL when the town of Exeter, Massachusetts renamed itself to honor Benjamin Franklin in 1778, they asked Franklin to donate a bell to the town church. Franklin responded with a donation of books instead, which formed the founding collection of America's first public library.
TIL about “Madhouse Promenade” which comes from the survival story of RV Belgica in which after battling mental illness from the endless Polar Night, crew members took to walking in a circle around the ice stuck ship.
https://125yearsbelgica.com/2023/02/27/madhouse-promenade/
TIL Phillips Academy is a prestigious boarding school in Andover, MA where they send dozens of students to prestigious universities every year
TIL the first telephone switchboard operators were boys, but their "rude and abusive" behavior led them to be replaced by young women.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/telephone/
TIL: The brother of John Wilkes Booth saved Abraham Lincoln's son's life from a train accident a year before the assassination
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Booth#Robert_Lincoln_rescue
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/15krkxp/til_the_brother_of_john_wilkes_booth_saved/
TIL that Galileo wasn’t vindicated by the Church until 1992
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair
TIL about Roy Pearson, a judge who sued his dry cleaners for $54 million after he accused them of losing his pants
https://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=3303910&page=1
TIL that Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers, Florida is the the #2 busiest single-runway airport in the United States; #1 is the San Diego International Airport. It is also the largest airport in Florida, and third-largest airport in the U.S. based on total area (13,555 acres).
https://a-z-animals.com/blog/largest-airports-in-florida/
TIL that Gatorade ran an ad campaign with the slogan "Is it in you?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edW7DsmWKrk
TIL There was a 55,000-person Yugioh riot in 1999 over special-edition cards, with riot police called on the kids at the Tokyo Dome
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-sep-24-mn-13493-story.html
TIL India developed Vyomitra, a female humanoid robot, to accompany its first astronauts in the historic Gaganyaan spaceflight program
TIL about the pumpkin toadlet, a tiny Brazilian toad that due to its tiny ear canal makes it terrible at hopping
https://gizmodo.com/glowing-pumpkin-toadlet-cant-hear-its-own-tiny-scream-1846782367
TIL That Wi-Fi routers should typically be mounted on or near the ceiling for maximum throughput
