› added 4 years ago

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TIL that Lurleen Wallace, the first female governor of Alabama, was elected after term limits prohibited her husband, noted segregationist George Wallace, from running again. She had married at 16 and had never held a paying job prior to becoming governor.

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6EMOl TIL a Chinese investor at one point planned to build a second Atlantic-pacific canal in Nicaragua. The plan is reportedly either canceled or delayed due to ongoing financial issues
OG5Qa TIL, after taking Shuri Castle during the Battle of Okinawa, a group of marines raised a Confederate flag over it. Three days later, General Buckner ordered it removed and replaced with a United States flag
jKaj TIL Avocados haven’t evolved in over a million years even though its original eaters are long extinct
e7B6 TIL that Peter Popoff, a popular televangelist was caught using a wireless ear piece in which his wife would tell him information about the person he was “healing” in order to create the illusion that he was really healing people. He was exposed by James Randi in 1987 and has since been bankrupt.
rR6Gw TIL that in 1783, a mysterious admirer of Marie Antoinette ordered her a most complicated pocket watch from Breguet. It included hours, minutes, seconds, perpetual calendar, equation of time, repetition for hours, quarters and minutes, independent seconds, thermometer and power-reserve indicator.