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TIL Benjamin Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanack contained death predictions of real and fictional people as a marketing trick so people would want to see the results in the next annual almanac. Franklin would sometimes include false death reports of astrologers as a running joke.

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R7OVw TIL that collective punishments is a war crime, as stated in the Hague Regulations and the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions.
1anA7 TIL Russia was forced to release ten pirates who had taken over an oil tanker, due to having insufficient legal grounds to detain them. They released them in an inflatable boat without any navigation equipment. Radio contact was lost within an hour. It’s believed that they all perished.
5VQOn TIL about the thymus, a small (1 oz.) organ behind the sternum that trains new white blood cells to NOT attack the body's own cells. Only 2% survive this rigorous training program; the rest commit suicide to prevent themselves from attacking friendly cells.
XEj6Q TIL Dr. Alan Hirsch, author of "What Flavor Is Your Personality?: Discover Who You Are by Looking at What You Eat," discovered that certain food scents trigger sexual arousal in both sexes. The baked scent of cinnamon buns & vanilla aroused men, while Good & Plenty candy-cucumber odor aroused women.
b6raN TIL There was a 26-year-old founder of the Farm Bank game (Ciftlik Bank in Turkish), Mehmet Aydin, who fled the country after scamming tens of thousands of people who invested in the game out of pocket for more than $100,000,000.