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TIL on 3 December 1894, the author of Treasure Island Robert Louis Stevenson was talking to his wife and straining to open a bottle of wine when he suddenly exclaimed, "What's that?", then asked his wife, "Does my face look strange?", and collapsed and died a few hours later due to a stroke.

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XE968 TIL Tennessee furnished more soldiers for the Union Army than the rest of the Confederacy combined and more soldiers for the Confederate Army than any other state besides Virginia.
b9990 TIL that after Spartacus’ revolt in 73 BCE, 6,000 slaves were crucified along a 120-mile stretch of road called the Appian Way. This equated to roughly 50 slaves per mile or roughly 1 slave every hundred feet. The mass crucifixion served as a deterrent to anyone else who thought to defy Rome.
KYbe6 TIL that O'Connell bridge in Dublin is the only bridge in Europe that's wider than it is long (by 5m)
grapX TIL the KVLY-TV antenna in North Dakota was the tallest structure in the world from 1963-1974, and again from 1991-2008
mxPjO TIL due to the overuse of the word "sorry" in Canada, Ontario lawmakers passed the "Apology Act" in 2009. Saying sorry could no longer be used against you in a court of law and that it represents an "expression of sympathy or regret” and not “an admission of fault or liability."