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TIL Teotihuacan was the largest city anywhere in the Western Hemisphere before the 1400s. It had thousands of residential compounds and scores of pyramid-temples, comparable to the largest pyramids of Egypt. It contains a massive central road and buildings but oddly, no military structures

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0wjx1 TIL Native Americans were not considered citizens until 1922, and didn’t gain freedom of religion until 1978. Until the Religious Freedom Act was passed, many Native American religious practices were banned.
d8LY8 TIL When the painting 'The Chelsea Pensioners reading the Waterloo Dispatch' was first exhibited at the Royal Academy summer exhibition in 1822 it was so popular that a rail was installed to protect it from the crowds. This was the first time that a rail was needed at the Royal Academy exhibition.
MealK TIL Arleigh Burke mistakenly led his ships into a Japanese minefield. Admiral Halsey asked him what he was doing in the minefield. Burke replied "about 31 knots." Hence his nickname '31 Knot Burke'
GA1M5 TIL that 6 year old Seryozha Aleshkov was the youngest soldier of WW2. The war orphaned him and then a group of soldiers took him in as a brother. He then went on to find German spies hiding in a haystack and was awarded for his intelligence. He died in 1990, aged 54. More information below.
e0PE6 TIL that in 1962, elephant bones were discovered under the Vatican. Decades later, it was discovered that they were the bones of Pope Leo X's pet elephant Hanno, who died in 1516 after doctors (in an attempt to treat constipation) inserted a gold enema up its rectum.