› added 1 year ago

38

TIL the "Jeopardy!" theme song was originally intended as a lullaby for the composer's son

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

Gnw4 TIL that Thanksgiving was made a national holiday because one woman obsessively campaigned to make it so until eventually President Lincoln agreed. The same woman also wrote “Mary had a little lamb” and lobbied for the creation of the Bunker Hill memorial.
vgJr TIL that John Travolta turned down the role of Forrest Gump and lost the roles of Benjamin Button, Maverick in Top Gun, and John Rambo
xLAk TIL: Due to Chimerism, a DNA test showed a mother was not the mother of her own children.
kOyMg TIL of the “smoosh method”, a way of introducing two chinchillas to each other by placing them both in a small cage they can’t move in so they don’t attack each other
p8ogQ TIL the curiously named US Navy ship, USS Bonhomme Richard, is actually a playful pseudonym for Ben Franklin. It was based on Franklin’s pen-name for his “Poor Richard’s Almanac”, and French for “good man”, due to his affinity for France.