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TIL one of the countermeasures against war elephants was to douse some pigs with oil or resin, set them alight, and drive them towards the enemy’s elephants. The elephants would bolt in terror from the flaming, squealing pigs, often killing great numbers of soldiers by trampling them to death.

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95Ym TIL that plastic surgeons use decapitated cadaver heads to learn and refresh their surgical skills. Somewhere out there, there a person who beheads cadavers for a living.
QXja TIL two Christian monks smuggled silkworms out of China in bamboo canes. Those silkworms were used to give the Byzantine Empire a trade monopoly in Europe, which became the foundation of their economy for the next 650 years.
jVmM TIL that there is a mysterious dwarf planet between Mars and Jupiter called ‘Ceres’ which has never been visited by spacecraft or photographed in detail, however, Earth-bound telescopes reveal a large bright shining spot on the surface of this planet, the origin and nature of which are unknown.
Lkw8m TIL that most cigarette tobacco is in fact "reconstituted tobacco", sheets of waste material sprayed with nicotine and other chemicals, which are then cut to look like leaf.
e0P54 TIL in 1968 Elton John attempted suicide but was discovered by Bernie Taupin. Upon finding Elton's head in the oven, resting on a pillow, with the gas on low, and all the windows open, Bernie couldn't stop laughing. This event inspired the hit single "Someone Saved My Life Tonight"