Today I Learned (TIL)

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/ObjectiveAd6551 on 2024-12-17 23:53:28+00:00.

Original Title: TIL Robert Duvall turned down the role of Woodrow Call in Lonesome Dove to play Gus McCrae, calling it one of the best roles he’d ever seen. His performance was so memorable that fans sometimes weep when visiting Gus’s mannequin, taken from his coffin scene, now displayed at Texas State University.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Johannes_P on 2024-12-16 09:58:08+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/MrMojoFomo on 2024-12-17 22:04:25+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that the idea that medieval castles had clockwise spiral staircases to make it hard for attackers is mostly unfounded. Not only did about 30% of medieval castles have counter-clockwise stairs, the earliest known reference for this claim comes from a book written in 1903, with no primary sources

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/wimpykidfan37 on 2024-12-17 03:51:18+00:00.

Original Title: Today I learned that the original version of "The Three Bears" didn't have a girl named Goldilocks visiting a family of bears, but rather an unnamed old woman visiting three adult male bears who happened to be different sizes.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/CaptainN_GameMaster on 2024-12-17 03:41:21+00:00.

Original Title: TIL of George Stathakis, who went over Niagara Falls in a barrel with his pet turtle. George survived the fall only for his barrel to get stuck, and he suffocated after 8 hours. His pet turtle, however, survived.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/pgh9fan on 2024-12-17 19:49:45+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/cuspofgreatness on 2024-12-17 19:46:29+00:00.

Original Title: TIL The Spanish were the first European settlers in the Florida Keys, and upon unearthing a burial mound on one of the southernmost keys, they named it Caya Hueso, Bone Island, a name later Anglicized into Key West. Spain officially relinquished control of Florida to the United States in 1821.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/LesPolsfuss on 2024-12-17 18:15:22+00:00.

Original Title: TIL the 1966 song "River Deep – Mountain High" which was written by Phil Spector, cost a then unheard of $22,000 ($207,000 in 2023), and required 21 session musicians. It was reported that the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson attended the session, where he sat "transfixed" and "did not say a word."

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/innergamedude on 2024-12-17 16:12:05+00:00.

Original Title: TIL English has 14-21 vowel sounds (depending on dialect), far more than the 5-6 of an average language like Spanish, Hindi, Telugu, Arabic, or Mandarin. This is why foreign speakers often struggle with getting English vowels right.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Flares117 on 2024-12-17 15:32:37+00:00.

Original Title: TIL: Entrepreneur Li Bo built the first sex doll brothel in China and had thousands of guests. It cost $15-57/ hour and features rooms like prison cells, hospitals, and classrooms. It made national headlines, but was shut down 3 years later by law enforcement. Criticisms involved sanitary concerns

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/AccurateSource2 on 2024-12-16 15:51:04+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that Harry Burn, a young state rep, cast Tennessee's deciding vote to ratify the 19th Amendment regarding women's suffrage after he got a letter from his mother reminding him to "be a good boy." The amendment cld not become law without ratification by a min. of 36 states. Tennessee was the 36th.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Its_Me_Tom_Yabo on 2024-12-16 21:20:06+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/JasonStone1987 on 2024-12-16 20:43:10+00:00.

Original Title: TIL as late as the 1850s, Santa Claus was said to deliver gifts on New Year’s Eve instead of Christmas Eve in many parts of America & Europe — ultimately, the widespread popularity of “Twas the Night Before Christmas” helped solidify Christmas Eve as the date

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/CommentFamous503 on 2024-12-17 13:29:46+00:00.

Original Title: TIL Romans organized many expeditions in subsaharan Africa, western expeditions, which crossed the Sahara desert, reached as far south as modern Nigeria while eastern expeditions, which followed the Nile upstream in search of its source, went as far south as Uganda and likely reached Lake Victoria

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/round-disk on 2024-12-17 13:06:21+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that voice actor and musician Chris Phillips co-wrote, performed on, and received a platinum award for the Denis Leary song "Asshole" (1993) shortly becoming the voice of "Face" on Nick Jr. (1994-2003)

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/ProudReaction2204 on 2024-12-16 20:46:49+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/ElAksel on 2024-12-16 19:56:12+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/nowlan101 on 2024-12-16 19:20:24+00:00.

Original Title: TIL all the instruments on Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You are either programmed or from a synthesizer. Carey’s co-writer on the song, Walter Afanasieff originally had a live band do the instrumental but was unsatisfied with the result and redid it by himself.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Flubadubadubadub on 2024-12-16 11:19:56+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/BadenBaden1981 on 2024-12-16 10:01:21+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/peterezgo on 2024-12-17 02:04:58+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/stumpyturk on 2024-12-16 06:26:53+00:00.

Original Title: TIL The Jane's Addiction song "Jane Says", about Jane who had a heroin addiction and hoped to move to Spain after kicking her habit: Jane actually did exist, she did kick her habit, and she did move to Spain. However, she was not a sex worker as the song intimated.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/magicmushrooms_pune on 2024-12-16 05:53:54+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/BiggieTwiggy1two3 on 2024-12-17 00:46:07+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that in 1789, during an attempted execution by breaking wheel in Versailles, a sympathetic crowd stormed the scaffold, rescued the condemned man, and burned the wheel—effectively halting the execution.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Tech-no on 2024-12-16 23:49:45+00:00.