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TIL that in the comic series Transmetropolitan the President of the USA stooped so low as to kill people close to him in order to gain polling points.

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NXemQ TIL that John Wilkes Booth attended the hanging of abolitionist leader John Brown. Booth stood near the scaffold and afterwards expressed great satisfaction with Brown's fate, although he admired the condemned man's bravery in facing death stoically.
ERBd TIL of the word “aptronym”, used for a personal name aptly or peculiarly suited to its owner, and its opposite, “inaptronym”. Examples of inaptronyms are Frank Beard, the only member of ZZ Top to not have a beard, and Donald Black, white supremacist.
mp6E TIL: When Edward I of England was coming back from the ninth crusade in 1272, he learned that his father had died and that he had been made king of England. Instead of returning home to be crowned, Edward went on a leisurely trip in Italy and France for almost two years and only came back in 1274.
6E9ZX TIL South Korean bootleggers made a plan to balloon drop Sony's "The Interview" to North Koreans, en masse. They had to cancel plans when North Korea learned of this and labeled such an action as "a declaration of war".
jGeE TIL In London from 1682 one could buy fire insurance: you attached a metal plate to their building ensuring that if there were a fire their insurance company would fight to extinguish it. If the building wasn’t insured the fire wasn’t put out unless it threatened to spread to an insured building.