› added 4 years ago

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TIL The atomic-bomb-carrying 509th Composite Group named many of their planes after their special mission: Strange Cargo, Up An' Atom, Necessary Evil, Some Punkins. They also had special tail markings but it was replaced for operational security reasons. Their famous nose art was mostly added after.

AN0ja TIL about Lydia Taft, who on October 30th, 1756, became the first woman to legally vote in U.S. History. During a Town Meeting in Uxbridge, Mass., Taft voted in favor of appropriating funds for the regiments engaged in the French and Indian War. Her vote preceded the 19th Amendment by 164 years.
loxe5 TIL former Chinese leader Wen Jiabao died a billionaire, but is portrayed by Chinese media as a frugal man of relative means, revering him to the commoners. Any information about his wealth is strictly censored on the Chinese internet.
GY5ng TIL that Queen still performed in apartheid South Africa when the majority of bands refused to, and was by far the largest band to do so. They were subsequently placed on the United Nations' artist blacklist.
XER1D TIL that in 2012, a uk couple jokingly invited Queen Elizabeth II to their wedding. She stopped by and said hello
ZpxMv TIL that Victor Hugo requested a very simple funeral with a pauper's casket. The government and Parisians made it a massive event. ~2 million people attended, brothels shut down, and a feminist journal complained that gymnasts and the department stores preceded the suffragists in the procession.