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TIL Gustav III of Sweden got a letter saying he was about to be killed at the masked ball he was attending later. He dared the would-be assassins by standing in an open box at the opera house for 10 minutes. Since he didn't get shot there, he deemed it was safe to join the crowd...where he got shot

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J1Q4j TIL Eric Idle of Monty Python responded to physicst Brian Cox's criticism of his "Galaxy song" by creating a sketch where Cox gets run over by Stephen Hawking
R5oj7 TIL about the Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka. It was a rocket-powered human-guided kamikaze attack aircraft. Although extremely fast, the very short range of the Ohka meant that it had to be carried into action as a parasite aircraft by a much larger bomber
XEpAX TIL: First game of chess against a computer was played in 1952 by Alan Turing. Because there were no computers powerful enough to actually run the program Alan Turing "ran" the program manually on a piece of paper
4da6 TIL that the Hercules beetle, despite weighing only 100 grams, can lift 8 kilograms, making it one of the proportionally strongest animals in the world.
6EVDm TIL that 844 people died aboard the SS Eastland because it had too MANY lifeboats. After the Titanic disaster, Congress passed laws requiring more lifeboats. This made the SS Eastland too top-heavy, and in 1915, it capsized before even leaving the dock.