› added 9 years ago

105

TIL a town in Tennessee hanged an elephant for murder in 1916.

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N7K9e TIL that the Orlov diamond was stolen from the Srirangam temple in India by a French soldier, who sold it to a merchant who smuggled it to Amsterdam, from where it was bought by Count Grigory Orlov, who gifted it to Catherine the Great. She encrusted the diamond into the Imperial Sceptre in 1774.
woJ1P TIL philosopher Thomas Hobbes was born prematurely on 5 April 1588, his mother going in labor because of her anxiety about the imminent invasion of the spanish armada, He would later write that "my mother gave birth to twins: myself and fear"
4Xa5g TIL of "starlight tours", a practice of the Saskatoon police that involved arresting Canadian indigenous people and dropping them off oustide city limits to freeze to death. It went from the 1970's to the early 2000's.
Lkdg0 TIL the actor who played Furio on the Sopranos once discovered a painting in a museum had been mislabeled. He bought it for $70k and it ended up being worth $10 million.
X01LD TIL Several U.S. states enacted legislation specifically banning Marilyn Manson from performing in state-operated venues.