› added 4 years ago

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TIL that the US flag was not the first flag on the moon. It was a "flag" from the University of Bern (Switzerland) that was used to capture solar wind particles, and was planted first to maximise the experiment's duration.

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gMyRX TIL after her death, Mercy Brown's heart and liver were burned, and the ashes mixed into a tonic that was given to her sick brother to drink. Her father believed that she was a vampire and that the tonic would cure the brother of tuberculosis. It didn't; he died two months later.
LeXP TIL that the “loose lips sink ships” propaganda campaign in WWII was not really designed to keep shipping information from German agents but rather to keep American morale up by not communicating how many US ships were being sunk by Germany
VMgO0 TIL President Harry S. Truman was so poor after his presidency that Congress had to enact a law to give him a pension. President Herbert Hoover the only other living ex-president took the pension as well, despite his wealth, to avoid embarrassing Truman.
8a0vb TIL Queen Elizabeth II is 36.4% of the world's current monarchs. There are currently 44 monarchies on earth, of which she is the head of 16.
N7AAP TIL that 150 meters below Naples, Sicily, there is a vast multi-level underground stretching over a half kilometer, containing WWII cars, beds, conveniences, and other war relics.