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TIL Nancy Green, born into slavery in 1834, was hired in 1890 to represent “Aunt Jemima”, an advertising character named after a song from a minstrel show. In 1893 Green was introduced as Aunt Jemima at the World’s Columbian Exposition, where it was her job to operate a pancake-cooking display.

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LkQMd TIL of the "Niihau Incident". After a Japanese Pilot crashed on a remote Hawaiian Island following Pearl Harbor, three Japanese Americans tried to help him escape, taking locals hostage and shooting at one. Their actions may have influenced the decision to intern Japanese Americans during WWII.
l4P7 TIL that ‘The Guardian’ keeps a database of the number of US citizens killed by the police in the United States
DQ4WJ TIL Only ten U.S. states do not have a commercially navigable waterway that connects to the ocean.
OGy6L TIL That the Sea of Japan has almost no perceptible tides.
awv60 TIL that in 1948 a man became fatally stuck underneath his tractor, and used his pocketknife to scratch the words "In case I die in this mess, I leave all to the wife. Cecil Geo Harris" into the fender. His scratching constituted a valid will.