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TIL of a courtier, Jeffrey Hudson, in the court of King Charles I of England who was only 18 inches tall. He challenged a normal-height man to a duel with pistols over an insult. His opponent came to the duel armed with a water squirt gun. Hudson shot him in the head with a real gun, killing him.

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8K0G TIL that Mozart heard a starling at market whistling an unpublished tune he was working on – he bought the starling to preserve secrecy, recorded the melody it sang in his notebook, and gave it an elaborate funeral when it died three years later.
awWJo TIL about Tusla's "Black Wall Street" It was the wealthiest Black community in America at the time before being attacked by an angry white mob which killed hundreds of Black residents and destroyed 35 city blocks. It has been called "the single worst incident of racial violence in American history
d87Rd TIL that the city of Tromsø in Norway, which lies within the Arctic Circle and is famous for being a destination to view the Aurora Borealis, has an extremely mild climate for its latitude. This is due to the Gulf Stream (originating in the gulf of Mexico, thousands of miles away) warming it.
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e1m6 TIL that there is an entire industry to help students cheat to get their degrees by having papers written by unemployed professors. If my students are using it, they don’t get caught for plagiarism because the papers are new. The company blames “the academic system” for being corruptable.