› added 10 months ago

35

TIL that the author of "Goodnight Moon" died following a routine operation at age 42, and did not live to see the success of her book. She bequeathed the royalties to Albert Clarke, the nine-year-old son of her neighbor, who squandered the millions the book earned him.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

awvoJ TIL the President's desk in the Oval Office of the White House was a gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880, & was carved from the HMS Resolute, a 19th century British Royal Navy ship that an American whaler recovered from the Arctic
7ogM TIL that SOS doesn’t mean “save our ship” or “save our souls.” SOS doesn’t actually stand for anything at all and is used simply because of how easy it is to remember.
9EPr TIL that Weezer’s first gig was opening for Keanu Reeves’ band Dogstar in 1992
PYA8G TIL about Isaac Woodard, an African-American World War II veteran who was beaten and blinded by police officers in South Carolina hours after being honorably discharged from the United States Army, the sheriff in charge of the attack was acquitted by an all-white jury
J11Nv TIL that two other people were planned to be assassinated the night Abraham Lincoln was. One of them was Lincoln's Vice President Andrew Johnson. The man assigned to kill him instead got drunk instead and couldn't work up the nerve to do it.