› added 4 years ago

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TIL that Rear Admiral Selden Hooper was the only admiral in the US navy to be convicted by court-martial. It was because he was a homosexual.

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DQa8e TIL the 'Puckle Gun', considered to be one of the first machine guns (1718), had a specialized square shaped bullet to be used against Turks as a means to "convince the Turks of the benefits of Christian civilization".
WNxo TIL there is a religion called Christian atheism. Practitioners believe in essentially the same things as traditional Christians except that the Bible is completely metaphorical and that God and/or Jesus is an allegory for human morality rather than a real being.
mxOGo TIL Eleanor Roosevelt was one of the most politically active women of the 20th Century. She campaigned civil rights in the early 1930’s, regularly spoke on behalf of her husband and pressed the US to join the United Nations. She eventually remodeled the meaning of ‘First Lady’.
Lmd TIL Joseph Stalin plotted to kill John Wayne
5Yb6Q TIL that James Buchanan was the only president of the USA to serve his term as a bachelor. He never married, and during his tenure the role of first lady was fulfilled by his niece, Harriet Lane.