› added 4 months ago

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TIL James Strang, leader of a Mormon splinter-group, crowned himself "king" of his church on Beaver Island, Michigan for 6 years. His "reign" was so hated by the locals that he was assassinated in 1856. His killers were kept in an unlocked jail cell and fined $1.25

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WvG9 TIL that washing your hands with good old soap and water is better than alcohol hand sanitiser at protecting you from catching Norovirus (winter vomiting bug)
x5J1 TIL that in 1140, when the Weibertreu Castle was defeated by King Konrad III, the women of the castle were granted free departure and allowed to take what they could carry. Thinking quickly, the women carried the men on their backs. The king kept his word and let the men live.
awrrN TIL that the man responsible for inventing leaded gasoline, Thomas Midgley Jr, was also accredited for the introduction of the ozone depleting refrigerant Freon. Later in life, Midgley contracted Polio and subsequently died when he was strangled by the very device he designed to get him out of bed.
M7QPW TIL that Warren Beatty was interviewed in character as Dick Tracy in a 2008 TV special that aired once on TCM. In the show, the Tracy character was interviewed about Beatty's 1990 movie, "Dick Tracy." Beatty made the special to retain sequel rights to the character. He still hasn't made the sequel.
kOKwg TIL of an undercover operation in 2020 where a group of white hat hackers discovered a security vulnerability and preemptively stole $10mil USD worth of the cryptocurrency Ethereum before anyone else could, stored the funds somewhere else, and then returned all of the funds to their original owners.