› added 9 years ago

69

TIL President Garfield’s assassin chose an ivory-handled gun over a similar wooden-handled model because he knew it would look better in a museum exhibit.

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69N6W Today I learned that poinsettias were first cultivated by the Aztecs. They were brought to America by Joel Poinsett, from who they get their English name.
woVZ6 TIL Jack Benny's last staring role in a film was in The Horn Blows at Midnight, which was a box office bomb. The film would go on to gain a new life as a punchline on The Jack Benny Program where it was the butt of jokes for over 20 years.
xVvno TIL that in WWII, President George H. W. Bush was shot down along with nine other US Airmen over Chichi Jima, an island held by the Japanese. He was the only one that was not caught, tortured, and murdered. Four of the others were eaten.
yVelV TIL that The Titanic’s junior wireless officer Harold Bride survived the disaster by getting onto an upturned lifeboat and was later paid a thousand dollars by The New York Times for his exclusive.
kOk6E TIL: When interviewed, a 70 year old man, who was once a feral child that lived alone with wolves in the mountains between the ages of 7 and 19 stated "he was disappointed in human nature and wished he could return to the mountains and leave society"