ZpbJo TIL German citizens, upon reaching their 100th birthday, receive a letter of congratulations from their president.
786ox TIL the 8th Wisconsin "Iron Brigade" brought a live bald eagle into battle during the civil war. He went on to live at the Wisconsin State House until he died after a fire. It's still used by the 101st Airborne Division as a mascot.
kJb6g TIL about the Iron Scow, a barge that broke loose in 1918 and nearly went over Niagara Falls with its crew still onboard.
Eg70p TIL the numeral system we use today was invented by Indian mathematicians (1st–4th c.), adopted and expanded by Arabic scholars in the 9th c., and spread to Europe by the Middle Ages, mainly used in Northern Italy until the printing press.
Y7bJW TIL that Abraham Lincoln rejected a proposed marriage arrangement because the girl was too fat. "Her present bulk" was so great, according to Lincoln, that he believed her to be far older than her stated age, as her skin was "too full of fat to permit of its contracting into wrinkles."
BgY7b TIL Edmund Fitzgerald, namesake of the ship lost with all hands in a Lake Superior storm in November 1975, had a great uncle Edmond Fitzgerald who also had a ship named after him, which was lost with all hands in a Lake Erie storm in November 1883
rNbl0 TIL that if you leave out the © copyright symbol in your work, infringers can claim they didn’t know it was copyrighted, a legal defense that may reduce the damages you can receive.
NXJb8 TIL about the White Ship Disaster, a 10th century sailing mishap that killed off dozens of nobles and the King of England's only male heir, plunging England into a 15 year civil war for the throne.
l7bOG TIL I learned that the eggs of sea urchin produce hydrogen peroxide after fertilization.
P1DAJ TIL the current leading theory for the origin of Chronic Wasting Disease (Zombie Deer Disease) is that sheep infected with Scrapie shared pastures with deer in Colorado in the 1960s and infected the deer
epb4E TIL that in 2004 the former head of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, wrote and published a childrens book called Indraguzik.
8eO7L TIL about coaching trees in the NFL: In 1998, half of all active NFL head coaches traced their lineage to either Bill Walsh or Tom Landry. By 2018, 28 of 32 NFL head coaches were connected to Bill Parcells or Bill Belichick. Five of Sean McVay's assistants have become head coaches since 2017.