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TIL that The Day After, a 1983 made- for- TV movie about nuclear war and it’s horrific effects, was watched by about 100 million people when it aired. President Reagan was left deeply depressed after viewing it, the film is now seen as having pushed him to start advocating nuclear disarmament

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awvoJ TIL the President's desk in the Oval Office of the White House was a gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880, & was carved from the HMS Resolute, a 19th century British Royal Navy ship that an American whaler recovered from the Arctic
5Vxa8 TIL the alibi Hermes provided after stealing 50 of Apollo's cattle: he WAS born yesterday and couldn't know what cattle were. When required to return the remaining unsacrificed cattle to Apollo, he distracted him by playing the lyre, and traded it for Apollo's cattle and position as divine herdsman
6vKY TIL in July 1943, an injured Australian soldier single-handedly carried 12 American casualties to safety whilst under heavy fire at Mt. Tambu
5wjr TIL that Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” is about the negative effects of the Vietam War on Americans, but is often misunderstood to be a patriotic or nationalistic anthem
GYJ84 TIL nobody knew for certain if there was a point in a horses gait where all 4 legs were off the ground until it was finally settled in 1878 with 16 photos that captured it in quick succession. A horse ran over wires placed every 21 inches and triggered the shutter in ​one-thousandth of a second.