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TIL of Clement Vallandigham, a lawyer and congressman during the Civil War. The Union deported him for supporting the Confederacy. After the war, he died by accidentally shooting himself during a murder trial while trying to show the murder weapon could have misfired. His client got off as a result

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56r TIL during WWII, 12000 conscientious objectors served the government without pay. Their many jobs included smokejumping into forest fires, being human test subjects, and working at mental hospitals, where their pacifist approach revolutionized the way mental patients were treated.
JrK4 TIL In Los Angeles you can serve a jail sentence in a much nicer “pay-to-serve” jails for $100. These allow day release for employment, food delivery, and better visiting conditions. Those that can’t pay as much clean the jail.
GA6DG TIL the equinox has a related phenomenon: the equilux. The equinoxes are the days when the equator is at its closest point to the sun. Locally, however, some days before or after an equinox is when daylight and darkness specifically are closest to equal. This is the equilux.
R7VJa TIL The Alamo was fought over slavery. Texas settlers wanted to keep slaves after Vicente Guerrero, the black president of Mexico, fought for and abolished slavery. But Andrew Jackson and Sam Houston hatched a plan to take Texas from Mexico to create a slave state.
6rRl TIL that in some cultures children were intentionally given names with unfavourable meanings like ‘ugly’ and 'crippled’, as it was thought that this would make them less desirable to child-stealing demons.