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TIL Francesco Guicciardini's father refused to make his son a priest, out of principal, even if it meant less money. As a layman Francesco ended up working for 20 years as the Pope's right hand man. He privately wrote that he hated the clergy, but self interest demanded to keep working for them

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E15XP TIL There's a company that takes your DNA sequence and predicts which wine you would enjoy.
Bg4Rd TIL left handed people are significantly more likely to be paedophiles
oBWPo TIL the song “I Put a Spell on You” by Screamin’ Jay Hawkins was supposed to be a ballad, but during a recording session, Hawkins “screamed and grunted” through the whole song because he was drunk. It was his most-successful recording and is in The Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
VMGEp TIL of Six Californias, a proposed initiative in 2016 to split California into six separate states: Jefferson, North California, Silicon Valley, Central California, West California, and South California. The initiative failed to meet the required signatures to make the ballot.
ANkN4 TIL That, until recently, people who spent more than six months in Britain from 1980 to 1997 were unable to donate blood because of an outbreak of "mad cow disease" in the area at that time