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TIL about Senator Margaret Chase Smith (R-ME) who delivered a 1950 Senate floor speech ("Declaration of Conscience") against McCarthyism - while he was seated behind her. McCarthy removed her from a subcommittee and financed her (unsuccessful) primary challenger. She voted for his censure in 1954.

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9w0BX TIL the second Mongol Khan, Ögedei Khan, was well known for his alcoholism. When his brother, Chagatai, entrusted an official to watch his habit, he vowed to reduce the number of cups he drank a day, only then having cups twice the size created for his personal use.
yQDbM TIL A battery has been ringing a bell for 180 years and we don’t know what its made of
1655d TIL there was a Finnish actress named Sirkka Sari who was born in May 1920 and died in July 1939. At a hotel party with fellow actors, she fell into a chimney while on the roof, thinking it was a balcony. Only 19 at her death, her life spanned only the interwar period, never witnessing WW1 or WW2.
Wk4VN TIL That George Bonga, the first African-American born in the territory that became Minnesota, was also legally the first white person to be born in the state as all non-natives were legally categorized as white
dkw8 TIL that a 2010 study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety showed that laws banning ‘texting while driving’ have actually increased road accidents because people will do it anyways, and hide their phone down lower where it is harder to see the road.