› added 10 months ago

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TIL that Elizabeth I had a lot of missing teeth from eating too much sweets, making it difficult for foreign ambassadors to understand what she was saying.

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dD7Dr TIL Bill Dana, comedian and script writer, most well known for his character Jose Jimenez, had a brother who was an accomplished musician, arranger, and who wrote the theme song to Get Smart. Dana had earlier worked with comedian Don Adams, and wrote what would become his character in Get Smart.
6EpQw TIL that undercover FBI agent Joseph Pistone led to over 200 indictments and over 100 convictions of Mafia members. The man who introduced Pistone to the Mafia was murdered for having allowed an FBI agent to infiltrate the family; he was shot dead and his hands were cut off.
b9g64 TIL: The quote claiming that Neil Armstrong doesn't exercise because he believes that every human has a finite number of heartbeats is false. Neil did not subscribe to its thesis and only quoted the claim to disagree with it.
0w4WN TIL that in 1914 Capt Campbell, a British POW held in Germany, asked permission from Kaiser Wilhelm II to visit his dying mother in England. The Kaiser agreed, on the condition that Campbell return to the camp, which he did - and remained there until the war ended in 1918.
BrXXy TIL up to 12 million letters and 1 million parcels a week were delivered to soldiers during World War I. There was no automation beyond a stamping machine to date and stamp letters. All sorting was done by hand and the mail was transported in sacks.