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TIL a Star was so Frequently Mistaken for Mars it was named Antares (anti-Ares) or ‘Not Mars’

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via reddit.com

ne7r7 TIL that up until 2017 the Swiss Air Force operates only on weekdays from 8am to 6pm. They now work weekends but are still limited to office hours.
Xdj6 TIL a few weeks before Abraham Lincoln was elected president, 11 year old Grace Bedell sent Lincoln a letter encouraging him to grow a beard, writing, “All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you…” By the time of his inauguration, Lincoln had a full beard.
KgWE TIL in ancient Rome, the architectural feature called a “vomitorium” was the entranceway through which crowds entered and exited a stadium. The Latin word vomitorium derives from the verb vomitum which means “to spew forth”.
wmgo TIL that the Volkswagen Beetle used air pressure from the spare wheel for the windshield washer system
896Z TIL that the deepest artificial hole on Earth is the Kola Superdeep Borehole, in Russia. It is 12,262m deep, which is 1% of the distance from Earth’s center.