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Today I learned that Ludwig IV (*1286-† 1347) was crowned Emperor by the Roman people in 1328 at St. Peter’s Basilica, bypassing the Pope’s authority after being excommunicated, to assert his independence and secure his legitimacy.

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Qd89 TIL “Christopher Columbus, in an effort to induce the natives of Jamaica to continue provisioning him and his hungry men, successfully intimidated the natives by correctly predicting a lunar eclipse”
1aEod TIL that although pandas have switched to a bamboo only diet for 2.4 million years, they have experienced little to no changes in their digestive system and are completely able to eat and digest meat.
l7adr TIL of Brandolini's law, where "the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it"
Bg1XD TIL Kit Harington auditioned for “Game of Thrones” with a black eye after getting involved in a fight at McDonald’s the night before. The fight was because someone called his date an “ugly pig”. Kit ended up getting the role of Jon Snow and thought the black eye may have helped him land the role.
6EyPQ TIL that Hughes engineers swung a satellite around the Moon and approached earth from a 'stealthy' direction, "downwards from the Moon rather than up from the ground, the way we typically think of missile launches by aggressor nations."