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TIL of an Ugandan doomsday cult whose followers surrendered their wealth to the church. After the prophesied date passed many disgruntled followers demanded their money back. The cult leaders responded by massacring over 900 of them. The leaders were never caught.

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yQLKM TIL of N-rays, a new form of radiation described by French physicist Prosper-René Blondlot in 1903, sparking the publication of hundreds of scientific articles. Failing to detect them himself, physicist Robert Wood later found them to be illusionary after sabotaging a experiment by Blondlot himself.
EO50 TIL- that a student intercepted the torch relay in the lead up to the 1956 Melbourne olympics and handed a silver chair leg with some burning underwear to the mayor of Sydney who promptly started his speech.
nekjW TIL that a CIA analyst was able to figure out the locations and power consumption of the Soviet nuclear enrichment plants based on a censored cover of a magazine
9X9M TIL Inspired by The Empire Strikes Back, Richard Dailey killed his horse and crawled inside the carcass to survive an Idaho storm. He found it wonderful and warm at first but later claustrophobic and grotesque. Dailey said The Revenant was pretty accurate but wondered why DiCaprio got naked.
J1yj TIL: Some strains of viruses have viruses of their own