› added 5 years ago

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TIL about Cronus, the tarantula who whipped the Tory party in the United Kingdom. He is the pet of former chief whip Gavin Williamson. He kept Cronus positioned on his desk in his office in the Hous of Commons in order to intimidate MPs to vote with the government.

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via reddit.com

P4PZ TIL A huge block of marble lay neglected in a Florence churchyard for 25 years after two sculptors had already tried and failed to turn it into a sculpture. Michelangelo took the deteriorated marble and created the Statue of David.
neNvB TIL Pill bugs, AKA (Roly polies, Potato bugs, etc), are not insects, but are closely related to shrimp and other crustaceans. They also have gills.
NANJ TIL that Haitian leader François Duvalier won a blatantly rigged presidential election in 1961 (with all votes cast for him), after which he declared: “I accept the people’s will. As a revolutionary, I have no right to disregard the will of the people.”
QNZg9 TIL about Jolly Joseph, an ordinary woman, who shocked India with her involvement in the mysterious deaths of 6 family members over 14 years which were presumed to be normal deaths. Police grew suspicious after noticing a pattern of sudden and exhumed the bodies, leading to her arrest in 2019.
nedvd TIL about Lauri Törni, a veteran of three armies. Törni fought as a second lieutenant of the Finnish Army in the Winter War, as a captain of the Waffen-SS in the Eastern Front and as a captain of the U.S Special Forces in Vietnam. Mauno Koivisto, former president of Finland, was under his command.