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TIL Robert E. Lee privately opposed the confederacy and slavery, and was offered command of the union army, but ultimately decided he couldn’t wage war against his own state, Virginia.

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VMgXB TIL Abraham Lincoln's corpse was sent on a two-week funeral tour across America, shown openly to thousands. In the course of the trip the body visibly decomposed, bloated, and darkened. In New York City alone, the body was seen by over 150,000 and exposed to the air for 23 hours straight
JYZ9m TIL that, on average, Mercury is not only is the nearest planet to the Earth , but to all the other planets in the solar system.
9ww0Q TIL that the first person to break the sound barrier wasn't Chuck Yeager. That record belongs to Nazi test pilot Lothar Sieber, who crashed his rocket powered (partially) wooden aircraft into the ground at just over Mach 1 in 1945.
lo7yA TIL 96 percent of U.S. pet-custody cases involve dogs. Only 1 percent involve cats.
pYwNp TIL in response to criticism of Mazda naming their SUV after the Navajo, the company donated a Mazda Navajo model to the tribe