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TIL when baseball pitchers invented the curveball, the president of Harvard protested, calling it a "dishonest practice unworthy of Harvard students" ... "Progress in athletics is in the direction of fraud and deceit."

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RYW7 TIL that in 1939, Maine Rep. Cleveland Sleeper introduced a bill to make it illegal to add tomatoes to clam chowder.
a8Bmb TIL Gustav III of Sweden got a letter saying he was about to be killed at the masked ball he was attending later. He dared the would-be assassins by standing in an open box at the opera house for 10 minutes. Since he didn't get shot there, he deemed it was safe to join the crowd...where he got shot
AD8kB TIL The word "raccoon" was adopted into English from the native Powhatan term, as used in the Colony of Virginia. It was recorded on John Smith's list of Powhatan words as aroughcun, and on that of William Strachey as arathkone
p8BDZ TIL In 1985, Neil Armstrong and Edmund Hillary went to the North Pole together.
D1rp TIL that in 2006, two women named Madeleine Mores (who claimed to have never met each other) both claimed to have the same identity along w/ corroborating birth certificates and govt documentation. When presented with a photograph of them together from the 1940’s, neither remembered it being taken.