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TIL that President Johnson, out of respect for his assassinated predecessor, John F. Kennedy, used the Oval Office only as a formal setting with visitors and continued to do most of his work in his vice presidential suite located in the Old Executive Office Building

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neXRW TIL that pineapples were so rare a sight in the 1700's they were a symbol of wealth. The few that were cultivated in hothouses were worth about five thousand pounds ($8000) each. They weren't eaten, but were rented out by the aristocracy as a table centerpiece at dinner parties.
78dYb TIL - After the American Civil War, up to 20,000 Southerners emigrated to Brazil. Their descendants are called Confederados, and they still hold festivals with Confederate flags and Southern food. They openly embrace their American ancestry still.
PZ4e TIL Peter O'Toole found his camel saddle uncomfortable while filming Lawrence of Arabia, so he put a piece of foam rubber under it. The film’s Bedouin extras saw this and copied it, and today the practice has spread to become Bedouin tradition. They call O’Toole “Father of the Sponge”.
oR1ZA TIL in the pre-classical era, the ancient Greeks condoned piracy as a viable profession; it apparently was widespread and "regarded as an entirely honourable way of making a living". References are made to its perfectly normal occurrence in many texts including in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.
N69N TIL a French man named Benoît Lecomte once swam 3,716 miles across the entire Atlantic Ocean, from Massachusetts to France; the feat took him a total of 73 days, 5 of which included him being followed by a great white shark