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TIL that J. Edgar Hoover falsely claimed that a woman who “couldn’t plan breakfast” had been criminal mastermind and gang leader, after she was killed in a shootout between her son and the FBI. Hoover’s version of her inspired Ma Beagle in DuckTales, and Ma Fratelli in The Goonies.

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kJ684 TIL the Quiznos sandwich chain, once a common sight with its catchy slogan "Mmm... Toasty!" and 4700 locations in 2007, suffered a steep decline and closed over 90% of its stores within the following ten years. This event goes down in industry history as the largest and swiftest collapse.
d9xZ TIL Angelina Jolie purchased 60,000 hectares of Cambodian land that was infiltrated by poachers and turned it into a wildlife reserve. Some of the former poachers were employed as rangers.
d87vj TIL Princess Sophie (of a minor German principality) married a Russian prince— soon after he was crowned emperor, she overthrew him and crowned herself Empress Catherine the Great. She annexed much of Poland (then ruled by her former lover), helped modernized Russia & started colonizing Alaska.
eppm6 TIL of George Forster, a convicted murderer who was sentenced to death in 1803 in London. His body was subject to a Galvanism experiment by Giovanni Aldini, where a current was passed through his muscles, despite being dead his face contorted and one eye even opened.
X1RX TIL that in 12,000 years, due to the wobbling of the earth’s axis, the North Star will shift from Polaris [in Ursa Minor] to Vega [in Lyra], and winter in the Northern Hemisphere will occur in June rather than January.