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TIL Several months before Ed Sullivan, George Harrison performed with a local band in Eldorado, Illinois, a small town in the southern part of the state. This was the first public performance by a Beatle in the US

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9wKXD TIL Ancient Egyptians tested for pregnancy by having potential moms urinate on bags containing wheat and barley; if they sprouted shortly after it was a sign of pregnancy. A 1963 study reproduced the results as 70% accurate.
Qdek TIL: When Catherine di Medici was queen of France, she kept a ‘Flying Squad’ of 80 women tasked with sleeping with powerful men to extract their secrets.
gerL TIL of the Iron Pillar of Delhi, a 1600 year old pillar that’s rust-free
BrWBD TIL President Kennedy wanted to go to Mars not the Moon – but engineers told him it was 'a little bit too far'. Nasa told him it would take at least 15 years before we could put a man on the Moon after a weekend of intense calculations
MeVeW TIL when Gandhi's wife was stricken with pneumonia, doctors told her husband that a shot of penicillin would heal her, he refused to have "alien" medicine used and she died. Soon after, Gandhi caught malaria and, relenting from the standard applied to his wife, allowed doctors to save his life.