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TIL French author Voltaire wrote over 2000 books & was read by Napoleon, Frederick the Great & Catherine the Great. Upon his death in 1778 Catherine the Great purchased his entire collection & moved it to The Hermitage in Russia.

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4Y4N TIL Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat in Lithuania during WWII, saved 3000-6000 Jewish lives by unlawfully issuing transit visas so that they could travel to Japanese territory, risking his career and his family’s lives.
l7Ebr TIL France forced Haiti to pay billions in reparations for the privilege of being free, so Haiti had to take loans from a french bank, it took 122 years to pay off that debt
rN1Ax TIL in 1973, Stevie Wonder was the passenger in a vehicle that hit a logging truck. The truck lost its load and a log struck Stevie in the forehead leaving him in a coma for 10 days, His friend, Ira Tucker, was the first to elicit a response from him when she sang 'Higher Ground' in his ear.
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LQ6kr TIL That in 2005 Cheyenne storytellers broke over a century of silence to discuss the Battle of Little Big Horn. According to them the blow which took Colonel Custer from his horse and would lead to his death was struck by Buffalo Calf Road Woman who had accompanied her husband into battle.