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TIL as an alternative to Brigham Young’s wagon train trip to Salt Lake, Sam Brannan chartered a ship Brooklyn to take 238 passengers from New York, around the Cape Horn to Hawaii and then what is now San Francisco. Brannon then walked overland through Utah and met Young in what is now Wyoming.

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ZewQ TIL During the Stonewall Riots, the rioters responded to the arrival of the tactical riot squad by forming Rockette style kick-lines, and shouting to the tune of Howdy Doody “We are the Stonewall girls/ We wear our hair in curls/ We don’t wear underwear/ We show our pubic hairs.”
mkwo TIL the scene in The Shawshank Redemption where Morgan Freeman is pitching a baseball took 9 hours to shoot. He pitched it for the entire 9 hours without a single word of complaint and showed up for work the next day with his arm in a sling.
5Yebr TIL of Anneliese Michel who went through 67 exorcism sessions; one or two each week, lasting up to four hours, were performed over about ten months in 75–76. Later investigation determined that she was malnourished & dehydrated; her parents & the priests responsible were charged with homicide.
6el TIL that in 2007 Checkers was “solved”. That is, given perfect play, the win/lose/draw result for every possible game is already known.
9jEG TIL the words “apron” and “napkin” were originally “napron” and “apkin” but the preceding indefinite articles (“an” and “a”) were so confusing to the ear that the words eventually just changed.