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TIL US President Calvin Coolidge was alarmed at the number of turkeys president's were offered on Thanksgiving. He halted the practice for a short while until 1925 and was then offered a live raccoon 'Rebecca'. He refused to eat her and kept her as a pet at the White House

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9YvnQ TIL In 1924, Harold Israel was a vagrant accused of the murder of a priest. All the evidence seemed to fit him, but in court, the prosecutor Homer Cummings logically tore the case against him to shreds and freed him. Years later, Homer contacted him to share money from a film deal based on the case.
awxoM TIL The Agathis species of coniferous trees was mostly wiped out in the dinosaur extinction event, but 300M+ years from its start, is used to make furniture and ukeleles.
v1pZ7 TIL of Vissarion, a Russian mystic and spiritual leader who claims to be a reincarnation of Jesus Christ. His church has over 10000 followers, of which 4000 live together deep in Siberia. Members are forbidden from using money, eating meat, and vices, all done to prepare for an apocalyptic flood.
aw4v9 TIL most internet data is not transferred across continents by satellites. Instead, 97% of intercontinental data is transferred through hundreds of thousands of miles of cables at the bottom of the ocean.
rWG4 TIL that there’s a small college in Oregon with its own nuclear reactor, run by undergraduate students. It has more female reactor operators than all the other research reactors in the world …combined.