› added 6 years ago

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TIL Emma Lazarus' sonnet The New Colossus, which says, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free" was written for & donated to an auction to raise funds to build the pedestal for the Statue of Liberty. 16 years after her death, a plaque with her words was installed

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bB89 TIL that during Thirty Years War the Swedish refined waterboarding by using urine and shit
Nv6e TIL some species of carpenter ants can explode at will. As a last resort they contract their abs to rupture their internal glands, resulting in a suicidal burst of corrosive, immobilizing glue.
woey6 TIL that William Turner, the captain of the RMS Lusitania when it was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-Boat in 1915, was also the captain of the SS Ivernia when it was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-Boat in 1917.
WkkJ9 TIL Founder or Little Caesars Pizza Mike Ilitch's first philanthropic efforts was the Little Caesars Love Kitchen, established in 1985. The traveling restaurant was formed to feed the hungry and assist with food provisions during natural disasters.
VM1Ak TIL Freddie Mercury used a piano as the headboard of his bed and would often play tunes that he had heard in his dreams . This was Bohemian Rhapsody began