› added 10 years ago

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TIL between 1949 and 1952, The White House was completely gutted, leaving only the outer walls around a shell. The mansion was then rebuilt using concrete and steel beams in place of its original wooden joists

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Zp7vR TIL of Eddie Gaedel, the shortest baseball player in MLB history. At 3'7", he wore the number "⅛" as part of a publicity stunt, but actually was awarded an at-bat during a double header in 1951. He walked on four pitches.
BrNNk TIL that the current Emperor of Japan has published scientific papers in Taxonomy and has a goby species named after him
xVNl5 TIL That when Napoléon I emancipated the Jews he stated "I will never accept any proposals that will obligate the Jewish people to leave France, because to me the Jews are the same as any other citizen in our country" the Russian Orthodox Church labelled him as the 'Anti-Christ and The Enemy of God'
KJY9 TIL that German journalists have a word, “widow shaking” for the practice of aggressively getting sob story material from relatives of disaster or crime victims.
vPZj TIL that people can tell Mormons from non-Mormons just by their face.