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TIL Eamon de Valera was imprisoned for leading the Easter Rising. While inside, he took the chaplain’s key and melted candles to make a copy and sent it to his friends. They made a real key and put it in a cake. Valera was able to walk out scot-free. He went on to serve as the President of Ireland.

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v1gNr TIL that Split-brain syndrome is a disconnection of the left and right brain hemispheres produced by Corpus callosotomy(a surgical epilepsy treatment). This results in both brain hemispheres acting and perceiving things differently.
PO7J TIL the entire crew of the USS William D Porter, a WW2 destroyer, were placed under arrest after accidentally firing a torpedo at President Roosevelt aboard the USS Iowa during training drills. Other mishaps and failings give the ship one of the worst careers in history.
wLlQ8 TIL there's a fearsome creature in North American mythology that's basically a little puppy in the shape of an axe, and it hops about from camp to camp to eat the axehandles belonging inattentive lumberjacks
xVy4o TIL NASA launched a satellite after the USSR launched Sputnik, and it crashed in 3 seconds— so the press dubbed it ‘Kaputnik’
ANgW4 TIL in 1971, after the 2nd lunar EVA of Apollo 15, Commander Dave Scott found his NASA-issued watch had broken. He switched it with a prototype watch that he had been given as a back up. The only personally owned watch used on the moon's surface, it was auctioned in 2015 for $1.6 million.