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Today I Learned that footmen in a great house would always be called "James" or "John" regardless of what their actual name was. This was because the footmen may have a too working-class sounding name.

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gA44 TIL the original pledge of allegiance was completely secular. It was only in 1954, 12 years after its formal adoption, that a group of right-wing religious elements pushed for the phrase “under God” to be added, claiming it was “definitive factor in the American way of life.”
XEAKP TIL a former schoolteacher hit 3.2 million miles with the car he bought in 1966. Road-tripping Irv Gordon passed away recently, holding the world record of highest vehicle mileage with his Volvo P1800S
R5d94 TIL in 1916, Georgia Tech beat Cumberland in football 222 - 0. It’s the largest point differential in NCAA or professional history.
kJJEm TIL The flag of the East India Company was nearly identical to the original flag adopted during the American Revolution. In fact, there is a theory that this was intentional, as some saw the company as sharing grievances with the American colonies against the British Empire
preb TIL that not only has there never been a better rocket than the Saturn V (built in 1967), but that today’s engineers can’t even recreate it.