› added 3 years ago

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TIL in 1817 an English man named Abraham Thornton successfully avoided a murder charge by demanding "trial by battle." It turned out that the practice was still technically allowed under the law despite having not been used for hundreds of years. Parliament finally abolished it one year later.

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LvZd TIL a 10 year old girl with cancer was too sick to see Up in theaters, so Pixar flew the DVD to her house. She died that day after watching it with her mother.
owg8 TIL that Nikola Tesla used to feed pigeons, bringing injured ones into his hotel room to nurse back to health and one time spending over $2,000 to fix a pigeon’s broken wing and leg, including building a device that comfortably supported her, so her bones could heal.
ep4x5 TIL the "dirt" under your fingernails is most commonly the keratin debris from the underside of the nail, as well as skin cells from the nail bed.
jNkRX TIL that since it can't match the Earth's rotational speed, a westward plane technically travels east — just like the entire planet beneath it. It just has engines that help it travel east a little more slowly than everything else, making it move west relative to the ground.
vPGVj TIL: Mrs. Watanabe is a collection of thousands of Japanese housewives who invest while at home. In the early 2000s, they achieved cult status worldwide as investing gurus by using Forex to exchange yen for other currencies, causing a noticeable impact on global currency markets.