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TIL about the Skoptsy, an 18th century Russian Christian sect. They were best known for practicing castration/mastectomies/FGM in accordance with their teachings against lust. The belief originated in a mistranslation of a biblical command as “castrate yourselves” rather than “be fruitful”.

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mG1v TIL the Roman emperor Nero kicked his pregnant wife to death and then felt so bad about it that he found a young boy that looked uncannily like her, had him castrated and married him.
Q8rd TIL in 1968, a car driven by bank employees was pulled over by a motorcycle cop claiming the car had been rigged with a bomb. The cop got under the car to “defuse” the device. When the car started to smoke, everybody ran. Then the “cop” just drove the car away. The 300M Yen robbery remains unsolved
4wQ5 TIL that Guinness World Records had to drop records for consuming liquor, beer, wine as well as “other unusual records for consuming such unlikely things as bicycles and trees”.
69YKX TIL: The Mentor of Rhodes was a famous mercenary who fought against and for Artaxerxes III. After being captured after many assaults, he was pardoned and sent to invade his former refuge. Being successful, he was promoted to Satrap and given a horde of silver by his former enemy turned employer.
GY5X7 TIL Australian PM Gough Whitlam was removed by a British-American coup for abolishing royal patronage, moving Australia towards the Non-Aligned Movement, supporting “zones of peace”, opposing nuclear weapons testing, and threatening to close a CIA espionage base in Australia