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9YpkX TIL A professor at Indiana University launched a system of gaining experience points through classwork instead of giving out traditional grades.
KP4w TIL By paying a fee of $300 you could officially and legally avoid the civil war draft. You could also find a substitute to fight in your place, a tactic the rich often used to avoid being enlisted. To encourage recruits to join, even Abraham Lincoln paid a man $500 to enlist on his behalf.
Y7nyr TIL that Wan Hu, a 16th-century Chinese official, is said to have attempted to launch himself into outer space in a chair to which 47 rockets were attached. The rockets exploded, and it is said that neither he nor the chair were ever seen again.
DQeGg TIL that in the 1930s the founder of Porsche made a deal with Adolf Hitler to create the first ever Volkswagen and also helped make German tanks/weapons for WW2
Vgmk TIL: Thomas Jefferson wrote a book called The Jefferson Bible: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth because he believed the pure-principled teachings of Jesus should have been separated from the dogma and abuse of organized religion of the day.