› added 11 years ago

162

TIL that the Bronze Age method of casting a sword in a stone mold is probably the source of the literary and romantic images in the Arthurian legends that depict Arthur pulling the sword from the stone to become king.

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N7VD6 TIL of the Murray Gell-Man Amnesia Effect, i.e., we give newspapers the benefit of the doubt even after we catch them being inaccurate on subjects we know about. (Term was coined by Michael Crichton in "Why Speculate?")
yQ9Bv Til the Mothers' Milk Bank quietly offers breastmilk to adults with cancer and other serious illnesses to ease their symptoms.
l7NdG TIL that Smedley Butler is the last person to have been awarded the Medal of Honor twice
8ajDX TIL that the last surviving wife of a Civil War veteran died just 6 months ago. They married in 1936 while she was 17 and he was 93. This practice was common so that young women could receive the veteran's Civil War pension ($73.13/month). She died in December 2020 at the age of 101.
kOMjW TIL the allies had plans to assassinate Hitler in 1944, but decided against it because they considered him to be less competent than anyone who might have replaced him (likely Himmler, Bormann, Goebbels, or Goering). He made enough strategic mistakes that it was probably better to keep him around.