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TIL that Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia were cousins and exchanged conciliatory personal telegrams as World War I broke out between their countries. The messages were in informal English (a language they shared), signed “Willy” and “Nicky”.

Read more wwi.lib.byu.edu

via reddit.com

VB4Qp TIL that Elizabeth I was likely molested by her stepfather Thomas Seymour. He would forcefully tickle her, slap her butt, and at one point cut her dress ‘into a hundred pieces’. This only ended when Thomas and Elizabeth where caught alone in embrace, resulting in Elizabeth being sent away
YwEB TIL when Switzerland added a vote-by-mail option, voter turnout actually decreased in smaller cantons. Sociologists believe that in-person voting created a social pressure in smaller communities to show up at the polls, and this pressure was removed when people could claim that they voted by mail.
BrxRk TIL Elena N. Bodnar has a US Patent for inventing a brassiere, that in an emergency, can act as a pair of protective face masks and she was awarded the Ig Nobel Public Health Prize for it in 2009.
gM4NX TIL that For up to 15 years after WW2 the USS Calhoun County sailors dumped thousands of tons of radioactive waste into ocean
QJD16 TIL that a man by the name of Roger Williams was the galvanizer for Jeffersonian Democracy (ie separation of church and state) and was a staunch proponent for fair dealings with Native Americans. He was a devout man who saw organized religions as bastardizations of faith and God.