› added 3 weeks ago

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TIL that from 1958 to 2002 it was tradition for the newly elected French President to pardon traffic offenses for the 6-12 months before the election. President Chirac ended the tradition because of the substantial rise in traffic deaths and injuries it caused.

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via reddit.com

1a704 TIL a Louisianan man won a gallon of Old Granddad bourbon whiskey in a barroom bet during the Saints first football game in 1967. His family honored his wish after he passed of only opening it once the Saints made it to the Super Bowl, 43 years later.
R7Nl6 TIL Paul Robeson, the third black student at Rutgers, was valedictorian, two-time All-American in football, got a law degree from Columbia while playing in the NFL, was a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance, an international recording, stage, and film star, and a civil rights activist.
MeeZA TIL the founder of Chrysler's 14-year-old son hung a small watercolor landscape featuring an inch-high nude in his dorm room. His dorm master, believing that it was improper for a young man to display a picture of a nude woman, confiscated the picture and destroyed it. The painting was by Renoir.
Xo0P TIL that, during a Japan Air Lines flight from Paris to Tokyo, a massive UFO was spotted flying alongside the airplane, with the event captured on radar data. Officials from the FAA, CIA, and FBI all declared it the first radar data of a UFO.
yQRma TIL about Sister Doris Engelhard of Mallersdorf Abbey, the last nun working in Europe as a brewmaster. The abbey brews about 80,000 gallons of beer a year, all of which is consumed locally. The beer is untreated and needs to be drunk while it is still fresh.