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TIL that firefighters in rural Tennessee let a home burn to the ground in 2010 because the homeowner hadn’t paid a $75 fee.

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8ODV TIL that at the Battle of Verdun a group of French soldiers, boxed in by German forces and without communications, was saved by a messenger dog. The dog, named Satan, managed to bring the soldiers two carrier pigeons, allowing them to send the Germans’ position to French artillery.
XV5D TIL that Oktoberfest beer is typically around 6% ABV, far stronger and sweeter than typical German lager. It’s easy to get dehydrated and many people pass out. These people are called Bierleichen (German for “Beer Corpses.“)
rNLDw TIL that approximately 80% of faculty members (i.e., professors) with Ph.D.s in the U.S. were trained at just 20% of universities, while the five most common doctoral training universities account for one in eight U.S.-trained faculty members.
j6VVR TIL that priest Father Damien worked in Hawaii for 16 years, providing comfort to the lepers. He built homes and he treated lepers with his medical expertise. He prayed and comforted the dying. He later contracted leprosy but continued to give to the people and helped improve an orphanage.
YRdd TIL In the late 17th century a Vatican librarian wrote a treatise entitled De Praeputio Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Diatriba (A Discussion of the Foreskin of Our Lord Jesus Christ), in it he stated that Jesus’s foreskin had transcended like Christ and had become the rings of the planet Saturn.