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17

TIL The most serious attempt at secession was advanced in the years 1860 and 1861 as 11 Southern states each declared secession from the United States, and joined to form the Confederate States of America, a procedure and body that the government of the United States refused to accept.

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r0E1 TIL that a 1964 Olympic champion, Ewa Kłobukowska, failed the newly-introduced gender test before the European Cup in 1967 and was consequently banned from competing and stripped of her records; a year later, she gave birth to her first child.
bdDE TIL that up until the 1960′s, the only reliable pregnancy test was to inject a woman’s urine into a female African clawed frog. If the woman was pregnant, the frog would ovulate within 12 hours.
VpXQ TIL in 1960, Congress created a medal equal to the Medal of Honor specifically to confer it upon four chaplains for actions in WWII.
7LM TIL much of what we know about pirates comes from a single primary source with questionable reliability.
N71yJ TIL Charles Strite invented pop-up toaster (and nothing else) out of frustration. At the time, bread had to be turned manually in order to toast both sides, which resulted in cafeterias serving burnt toast most of the time.