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TIL: William Duer, a member of George Washington's inner circle was involved in the first American Insider Trading scandal. Using his knowledge of upcoming Treasury actions, he borrowed and took money from the treasury to leverage bond bets. The market then crashed and Hamilton had to rescue it.

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lo9LK TIL that on December 23rd 1953 Lavrentiy Beria (Head of the U.S.S.R.'s N.K.V.D.) begged on his knees for mercy before being executed. His fate was similar to that of his predecessor, Nikolai Yezhov, whom Beria is rumored to have strangled.
vPy9L TIL of the Church of One Tree, a church in Santa Rosa, California built with lumber from a single redwood tree The tree used to construct the Church stood 275 feet high and was 18 feet in diameter. It produced 78,000 board feet of lumber.
lo9aG TIL that Mother Teresa secretly confided in friends frequently about her lack of belief in God
5YkxP TIL about Swineburne island, an abandoned artificial island off the coast of New York used during the 19th and 20th century as a quarantine for infected passengers
pGLQ TIL that Shakespeare invented over 1,700 words, including “Swagger”