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TIL Spacesuits are equipped with a "spongy device" in the helmet to allow astronauts the ability to plug their nose

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6EAB8 TIL that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas spoke a creole language associated with the descendants of slaves called Gullah as his first-language and that his relative silence on the Court is due in part to self-consciousness from being teased about the way he spoke as a child in rural Georgia.
rNpwx TIL When aluminum was first discovered, in the early 1800s, it was worth more than gold. Originally, it was hard to separate from other materials. The Washington Monument was capped with it. When a reliable method was finally found to purify it, prices plummeted from $16 ($419 today) a pound to $2.
knk1 TIL Lennon/McCartney had a temporary Reunion in 1974 during Lennons “Lost Weekend”/separation from Yoko Ono. The reunion was long considered a myth, until a recording surfaced with them, Stevie Wonder and Henry Nilsson.
6ELEY TIL that in 1720 a ship full of precious goods and sick people arrived in Marseille/France. In spite of clear signs, greedy merchands put pressure an the authorities to shorten the quarantine and not to burn the freight. More than 100.000 people died because of pestilence in the next two years.
LQ0mP TIL: At 13, Waris Dirie fled her family in the Somali desert to escape an arranged marriage to a 60-year-old man. She made it to London and worked at Mcdonald's when she agreed to model for a photographer. She became a supermodel, appeared in a Bond movie & became a world-famous voice against FGM.