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156

TIL The Queen has been the face of so many currencies and has reigned for so long that it is possible to observe her aging process on Commonwealth banknotes.

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wLm8M TIL That doctors had been inadvertently causing a rise in peanut allergies by telling parents to avoid giving infants peanuts. They discovered Israeli babies are very low risk because of the popularity of the peanut snack Bamba in Israel.
kJnr7 TIL a poorly designed wireless communications system contributed to deaths of 343 firefighters on 9/11. Back then, emergency services ran many different communication systems which couldn't talk to each other, hindering the evacuation of the firefighters and the overall emergency response.
xVZbg TIL that after France surrendered to the Nazis, Winston Churchill ordered the destruction of the French Navy, killing 1,300 formerly-allied sailors.
ONBR TIL that while Beethoven was going deaf, he composed more music with low notes. This was because he had to put his head close to his piano to feel the vibrations. After going completely deaf, his compositions contained more high notes - because he simply began composing directly from his head.
W74Eo TIL 36 seconds after takeoff, Apollo 12 was struck by lightning and the computers, particularly those dealing with telemetry, immediately became garbled. The mission was almost aborted before engineer John Aaron recommended an obscure switch which reset data, saving the mission