› added 7 years ago

99

TIL a few weeks before Abraham Lincoln was elected president, 11 year old Grace Bedell sent Lincoln a letter encouraging him to grow a beard, writing, “All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you…” By the time of his inauguration, Lincoln had a full beard.

Read more wikipedia.org

via ift.tt

gOQ8 Today I Learned that a man thinks he traveled to another dimension where The Beatles never broke up. Here’s the story and the supposed songs he brought back.
8aKeb TIL that Death Row prisoners’ last words are transcribed and recorded. They range from religious statements, familial farewells, true apologies, insistences of innocence, even and snarky one-liners.
0wJgv TIL that in East Asia, 80-90% of children are myopic (nearsighted) and require glasses. Scientists theorize that their eyes aren't developing properly because eyes require exposure to natural sunlight to develop, and the kids spend all their time indoors, studying.
rR19o TIL the present-day Washington State was originally called "Columbia", but Congress forced the name change to "Washington" in honor of George Washington and to avoid confusion with the nation's capital, the District of Columbia
4GEJ TIL that in the 5th century, St. Benedict wrote a rule book for monks. He convinced them to be celibate, poor, to get up in the middle of the night to pray, to engage in hard labor and almost no conversation, to obey the orders of their abbott … but he couldn’t convince them to give up the booze.