› added 6 years ago

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TIL After the deaths of his brothers JFK and RFK, Ted Kennedy became the sole patriarch to the Kennedy family. On the same day his 12-year-old son was having his cancer-laden leg amputated, Ted had to rush down to lead his niece, RFK’s daughter, down the aisle at her wedding.

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X9KQ TIL that a “white elephant gift exchange” takes its name from the legend of the King of Siam gifting rare albino elephants to those who displeased him because the upkeep costs would financially ruin them.
8eKA8 TIL the Gestapo compiled a "Black Book" listing prominent residents of Great Britain to be rounded up after a successful invasion. In addition to obvious names like Churchill, the Nazis set their sights on Bertrand Russell and Virginia Woolf.
wWOW TIL that escape velocity of Deimos, one of Mars’s moons, is 20km/h - meaning you could easily throw something, or even ride a bike off a ramp, out of its gravity
VBYG8 TIL - term "pachyderm", commonly used to describe elephants, rhinoceroses, tapirs, and hippopotamuses is obsolete and no longer recognized.
WklpA TIL: Some swiss cheese lacks holes because the milk used to make it is too clean. A Swiss agricultural institute discovered that tiny pieces of hay dust are responsible for the holes.