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TIL in the 1340s Oxford had an estimated murder rate of roughly 110 murders per 100,000 people, and in the 14th-century, London's murder rate varied between 36-52 per 100,000 people. By comparison, the 2020 murder rate for Britain was around 1 per 100,000 people.

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X0Ad6 TIL that Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia were cousins and exchanged conciliatory personal telegrams as World War I broke out between their countries. The messages were in informal English (a language they shared), signed “Willy” and “Nicky”.
4XKAb TIL an Assistant US Attorney focusing on sex predators was found in his car hundreds of miles away with 36 stab wounds including on his back and scrotum. In the blood there was an unidentified fingerprint. FBI ruled it suicide.
VMlA0 TIL John D. Rockefeller, although he was the richest man in the world, occasionally served as janitor at his church
5Y0B9 TIL Carleton Gajdusek, who first described the prion disease kuru, had the rare distinction of being a Nobel prizewinner and a convicted child molester. As a medical researcher he studied kuru, an incurable disease that affects the Fore tribe in Papua New Guinea, and published 150 papers
wLY78 TIL The World Record for the fastest growing plant belongs to a certain species of bamboo. They have been found to grow up to 35 inches per day at a rate of 0.00002 mph. That’s nearly 1.5 inches an hour. You could literally watch bamboo grow before your eyes.