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TIL that the phrase 'Until the Bitter End' comes from the frame that a ships anchor was connected to (the bitts), so the 'bitter end' was the last bit of rope that attached it to the ship. This was designed to break and release the anchor if it was in free fall to stop it ripping out the ships deck.

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W71l4 TIL that for centuries, British people considered cucumbers too vile to be eaten by humans. But their opinion changed when Queen Victoria’s family started eating them. Cucumbers became really popular. A British engineer even went as far as inventing a glass tube which straightened curvy cucumbers.
NZ9M TIL that the original surveyors of Mount Everest lied and added 2 feet to its height to make it 29,002 feet, because they didn’t think people would believe them if they said it was really 29,000 feet high.
xVBAb TIL that in 1946, George Kennan, then USA's deputy head of mission in Moscow, sent a 8000 worded "Long Telegram", which became the basis of US approach towards USSR is the Cold War. He warned US of Kremlin's expansionist dreams, which, if unchecked, would shatter the principals on which US stands.
g9bW TIL John Lennon’s son Julian Lennon had to buy back his father’s letters written to him and other of John’s belongings in an auction that Yoko Ono did after John’s death. Julian basically used his dad’s money to buy his dad’s belongings.
b6oXp TIL the original signed manuscripts of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto were nearly lost in WWII when being transported for safekeeping to Prussia by train in the care of a librarian. The train came under aerial bombardment and the librarian escaped to a nearby forest with the scores hidden in his coat.