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TIL that during the American Revolutionary War, despite opposition from the Continental Congress, George Washington ordered the vaccination of 40,000 soldiers from smallpox, reducing the infection rate from 17% to 1%

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OoK7Y TIL a French man was surprised by his colleagues with a free ride in a French Air Force fighter jet going 870 mph (but had never said he wanted such a ride). He panicked, accidentally grabbed the ejector button and ejected himself at 2,500 ft altitude. He parachuted safely to to the ground.
BrVLr TIL of the term "paraprosdokian" - a figure of speech in which the latter part of a phrase is surprising in a way that causes the reader or listener to reinterpret the first part. An example would be Mitch Hedberg's famous one-liner "I haven't slept for ten days, because that would be too long."
5Yen9 TIL that while in Sharon Springs, Theodore Roosevelt was approached by a 12-year-old girl who asked if he would like to have a badger. Expecting to humor her, he agreed, and the girl came back with a 2-week-old badger. President Roosevelt named him Josiah and he became one of the presidential pets.
JYgM1 TIL After the deaths of his brothers JFK and RFK, Ted Kennedy became the sole patriarch to the Kennedy family. On the same day his 12-year-old son was having his cancer-laden leg amputated, Ted had to rush down to lead his niece, RFK’s daughter, down the aisle at her wedding.
JbKB TIL that the band Winger suffered a severe drop in record sales and concert attendance because of Stuart in Beavis and Butthead