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TIL Australia nearly became a republic in a 1999 referendum but was defeated 45/54

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9Y9mX TIL in 1928, the founder of Juilliard overheard an audition of someone improvising on a Rachmaninoff classic. Appalled, he went to confront the blasphemer, but found an 8yo Black girl (Hazel Scott), whose hands were too small to hit all the right keys. She was deemed a prodigy & accepted immediately
MeZ90 TIL that California is named after a fictitious island described in a series of 16th century Spanish romance novels. The island was described as being inhabited by beautiful black women who wore gold armor and fought alongside Muslims
PPRg TIL Dorothy Kilgallen, a regular on the show “What’s My Line?”, claimed to have interviewed Jack Ruby and that she was “about to blow the JFK case sky high.” She was found dead in 1965 and the cause of death was officially ruled as undetermined.
GAvyG TIL The US Army has 50 commissioned ships
lx1A TIL IN 1912, candy manufacturer Clarence Crane invented Life Savers as a “summer candy” that could withstand heat better than chocolate and shaped the candy with a hole to prevent children from choking, due to his own child having choked on a hard candy