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TIL the first African American person to hold an International Pilot License was Bessie Coleman, a woman who had to learn to fly in France when no one would agree to train her in the US. She was licensed two years before Amelia Earhart was

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JYeaV TIL that Former President John Tyler tried to organize a peace conference in 1861 to avert a civil war. At the same time, his granddaughter was ceremonially hoisting the flag for the Confederate convention in Alabama.
0wYaA TIL California prison inmates help fight forest fires.
oXlL TIL ukuleles weren’t introduced to Hawaii until the late 1800s. They were quickly popularized because the king at the time thought they were really neat.
5YZgp TIL In 1940 9,169 British people were killed in road traffic accidents during the wartime blackout. One person died that year for every 200 vehicles on the road; today the figure is one for every 20,000.
D0Zr TIL in 1962, the Department of Defense proposed staging a series of terrorist attacks in US cities in order to drum up public support for war with Cuba. It was rejected by President Kennedy.