› added 10 years ago

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TIL Once out of office, President Harry Truman decided that he did not wish to be on any corporate payroll, believing that taking advantage of such financial opportunities would diminish the integrity of the office. He had no personal savings. His only income was his old army pension: $113 per month

Y7G4W TIL that the Korean Alphabet was made because the King at the time didn't like how only the rich could learn to read. So he decided to take matters into his own hands and create a new writing system from scratch that can be "learned before lunchtime." You can actually learn to read it in 20 minutes.
Wg6Y TIL Clara Immerwahr, wife of Fritz Haber inventor of Mustard Gas, killed herself to stop his work. Fritz returned to work the next day, abandoning his son who, years later, also committed suicide. Fritz Haber won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work.
8eyOZ TIL on Feb. 6 1897 the Indiana state legislature passed a law making Pi = 3.2
XEbVj TIL in 1970, dynamite was used in a failed attempt to disintegrate a whale carcass on the Oregon coast. After detonation, most of the carcass remained on the beach, and the remainder flew into cars and people near the beach.
b6B8Q TIL: In the 1950s, the Army to built a bunker close to Washington DC so that Congress could go there if there was a nuclear attack. Engineers built a facility 700 ft below a golf course - 2 stories and over 100,000 sq ft - kept secret until 1992, when the Washington Post revealed its existence.