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TIL that Elenor Roosevelt contributed to serving the worst meals in White House history during FDR’s presidency. Partly to symbolize to the American population during the Great Depression that nutritious food can be made on the cheap. Also to seek revenge on FDR for his affair w/ Lucy Mercer.

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9wwmX TIL Vienna Philharmonic did not allow female musicians to join until 1997
D1P1V TIL That during the Vietnam War, several companies requested packs of playing cards that contained nothing but the Ace of Spades, because they used them in psychological warfare. They believed enemy troops saw it as a symbol of death, and scattered them in the jungle. Thousands of packs were sent.
N7dY6 TIL the “Underwear Bomber"plot failed because the bomber, Umar Abdulmutallab, wore the same underwear for two weeks straight and as a result the bomb’s fuse became "damp”
rAA4 TIL there was an astronomically unlucky astronomer: His first expedition to India to study the Transit of Venus was thwarted by clouds and war; his second 8 years later by the only cloudy day in months. Upon returning he found that he was legally dead, his wife remarried, and his estate was pilfered
n0wY TIL on April Fools Day 1976, English astronomer Patrick Moore stated to radio listeners that due to “a conjunction of Jupiter and Pluto” gravity would noticeably decrease on Earth. Shortly after, the BBC received hundreds of calls from people reporting they had felt the decrease in gravity.