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TIL Due to a metal shortage during World War II, Oscars statuettes were made of painted plaster for 3 years. Following the war, the Academy invited recipients to redeem the plaster figures for gold-plated metal ones

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5W88 TIL the last surviving veteran of the American Revolutionary War was Lemuel Cook, who died in 1866 at 106 years. He lived long enough to see the end of the Civil War.
LQX5v TIL most plants grow faster in the evening and at night than they do during the day.
ne7n9 TIL Submarine R-14, after losing all fuel and communications, reached Hawaii by building a sail out of blankets
KmY6 TIL during a 2014 court deposition, the St. Louis archbishop says that he didn’t know in the 1980s whether it was illegal for priests to have sex with children.
vP1XL TIL that self-taught inventor/engineer E. Lilian Todd was the first woman to design and build an airplane, only 3 years after the Wright brothers’ first flight. However, she did not pilot the aircraft herself because she was denied a permit.