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TIL: Slaves were sometimes lottery prizes in the past. An example was when Bernard Moore, in quick need of cash, divided his estate into 124 prizes and sold 1840 lottery tickets. You could win a slave, 10 cows, a house, a forge, mill, or wagon. The slaves were the cheapest prizes.

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GYBW1 TIL that there's a grocery chain in the UK called Iceland Foods that once pursued legal action against Icelandic companies that use the name Iceland in their names. Iceland Foods was founded in 1970, while the country Iceland was established in 874.
D1lWV TIL the first president of the United States, George Washington died in an incident of phlebotomy aka bloodletting gone wrong. In order to treat his throat infection, his three doctors could not agree on his diagnosis. They ended up draining eight pints of blood.
XELpr TIL the Dutch secret service set up a fake communist party in 1968 to spy on the Chinese government
Oo9ke TIL scientists reverse engineered a natural memory by mapping the brain circuits underlying its formation, then “trained” another animal by stimulating brain cells in the pattern of the natural memory, which created an artificial memory that was indistinguishable from the natural one.
ADdww TIL when actor Dylan McDermott was born his mom was 15 and his dad 17. His parents split and his mother was later killed by a boyfriend. At 15-years-old McDermott was adopted by his father's 3rd wife, she was 23. His stepmother is Eve Ensler, who wrote The Vagina Monologues, she got him into acting.