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TIL as a research student, Lawrence Bragg figured out how to use X-ray to study the atomic structure. His breakthrough discovery earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics at age 25.

Read more mediatheque.lindau-nobel.org

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wo8RP TIL that the Yamato, the largest battleship ever built, was on a 3,000-man kamikaze mission to beach herself on Okinawa before she was sunk by US forces in April of 1945.
P1WrG TIL in the 50s Disneyland offered fishing on Tom Sawyer Island in an area called Catfish Cove. Guests could borrow a pole and a can of worms to try and catch fish. They offered to clean, ice and store them until close at a restaurant. It was promptly ended after fish were discarded all over the park
xVY50 TIL - Greenland got its name in 986 AD from the explorer Erik the Red's attempt to lure settlers to the ice-covered island: "it would induce settlers to go there, if the land had a good name".
6EP0Z TIL that Aaron Burr, infamous for killing Alexander Hamilton, was an early proponent of women’s rights. He praised Mary Wollstonecraft’s “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,” and provided his daughter with an education usually only afforded to boys of the time.
VGr0 TIL that Salvador Dali made a painting for the prisoners at Rikers Island in NYC that hung in the prisoner dining room for 15 years, when it was moved to the prison lobby for ‘safekeeping’. In 2003, three prison guards and a warden stole the painting.