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TIL of a Chinese general with 100 troops who had to defend a town against 150,000. He told his men to hide, flung open the gates and sat on the walls playing a lute. The opposing general, certain it was a trap, ordered a retreat

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911D TIL a guy upset with his then girlfriend for not properly mourning his father’s death hatched a plan to marry and conceive a child and then kill it later after the wife had bonded with it. He was convicted for murdering the 7 month old.
gMy5L TIL about the Stoned Ape Theory, which suggests that the consumption of magic mushrooms by early humans is one of the factors that led to the rapid increase of the brain/cranium size.
LlXZ TIL that J.R.R. Tolkien (author of LoTR) was a member of The Tea Club Barrovian Society whose nine members met regularly at the Barrow Stores in Birmingham, England, UK. Of the Nine, only two survived WW1. J.R.R. Tolkien was deeply traumatized by the loss of almost all his closest friends.
v5bD TIL that a guide dog calmly led 30 people down 1,463 steps out of the World Trade Center on 9/11 despite the confusion, smoke, and noise around them. Once safe, the dog then helped a woman who was blinded by the debris.
e0d1n TIL in 1744, two Scottish Presbyterian ministers made a plan to have fellow ministers pay a small amount a year into a fund, which would be used to take care of their widows if ministers died. It became the blueprint for modern insurance, and their fund, Scottish Widows, is now worth billions.