› added 4 years ago

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TIL that nineteenth century New Orleans socialite Delphine LaLaurie was discovered to have been torturing several slaves in her home for months on end. In public life, she put on a facade of politeness toward black Americans and bragged about taking good care of her slaves.

epWgJ TIL While Apollo 15 astronaut Jim Irwin was lugging heavy objects on the Moon, flight surgeons noticed an irregularity in his heart rate and realized he had bigeminy. His heart condition eventually killed him 20 years later.
xVo9D TIL Elephants console one another when they are upset with gentle touches and trunk strokes. Previously, only humans, great apes and birds in the raven family were known to do this.
XE77r TIL in 1966 aviation legend Howard Hughes overstayed his penthouse suite reservation at the Desert Inn in Las Vegas and upon management asking him to vacate, he purchased the entire hotel and continued living/working in the suite for 4 years while establishing himself as a real estate tycoon
R7o7j TIL-Planned systemic obsolescence is deliberately making a product obsolete by altering the system in which it is used as to make its continued use difficult such as not accommodating forward compatibility in software, or changing screws so that they cannot easily be operated on with existing tools.
b6OyN TIL that during the Battle of Matilda in the War of 1812, a Canadian militia were ambushed by a much larger American militia. The Canadians who had half the number of men, nevertheless emerged victorious.