› added 11 months ago

26

TIL of Harry Hopkins, FDR's closest confidant and right-hand man in World War II. In 1939, he suffered from stomach cancer and lost 75% of his stomach in an operation. Told that he had only four weeks to live, Hopkins suffered through poor health to work throughout World War II, and died in 1946.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

JYA48 TIL that the first movie about the Titanic came out 29 days after the actual ship sank, starred a real life survivor who wore what she had on the night it sank in the production, and resulted in her suffering a mental breakdown shortly after its completion.
yQOVl TIL Peoria, Illinois was a test market for new shows in the early 20th century, due to their broad demographic. This gave rise to the phrase "Will it play in Peoria?"
7r1yb TIL Neil Armstrong and Aldrin were almost stranded on the moon because they broke a vital circuit breaker, snapping power to the engine. They finally managed to push and hold it back in with a felt-tip pen long enough for it to work.
VMrKG TIL: Historically, monarchs in East Asia would use two alternative titles: internally they claimed to be “emperors”, but in dealing with China they called themselves “kings” to avoid offending the Chinese.
gMGJD TIL Sir Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989. He was frustrated with the fact that he had to go and ask his coworkers what data was on their computer so he can add it to his computer which led to him creating an application that became the world wide Web.