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TIL in 1981 a man named Roger Fischer had an idea for a volunteer to have ICBM launch codes put in their chest cavity. In the event of an emergency, the volunteer would carry a knife to be killed with. It was meant to force the personal killing of one man to start the impersonal killing of millions.

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neo4W TIL A house cat bit its owner in the middle of the night to alert the family for the house fire. The family got out in time with no injuries and the fire department confirmed the cat was partially responsible for the rescue, "Hero kitty"
4k8Bb TIL of Meigs Field, which was destroyed one night in a clandestine mission by the chicago mayor.
5Y7YR TIL that "on January 13, 1958, Klansmen burned a cross on the lawn of a Lumbee American Indian woman in the town of St. Pauls, North Carolina as "a warning" because she was dating a white man." At their next rally, a group of 500 armed Lumbee encircled the klansmen and opened fire.
E1ax0 TIL when a young boy visiting the White House doubted that First Lady Pat Nixon lived there because he could not see her washing machine, Pat led him through the halls and up an elevator, into the family quarters and the laundry room to show him.
8adyb TIL that Doane Robinson, the historian who came up with the idea for Mount Rushmore, initially didn't want it to feature former presidents. Robinson wanted sculptures of Lewis and Clark, Buffalo Bill Cody, Chief Red Cloud and other Sioux warriors but the sculptor refused to focus on regional heroes