› added 8 years ago

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TIL people in the Middle Ages would brew a batch of ale, have a big party to drink it, and collect donations for the needy. They called it a “help ale” and preceded charity keggers by 1500 years.

d8XdB TIL Edward Dickinson Baker was serving as a U.S. Senator when the U.S. Civil War broke out and re-joined the Army as a colonel. He was killed in battle and remains the only sitting U.S. senator ever to be killed in a military engagement.
dpJ8 TIL Peyton Manning is number 18 on honor of his brother Cooper, who had to retire in high school due to a spinal injury. His brother, Eli later went on to be the starting quarterback at the same high school, as number 18
BrKeL TIL in 1931, an Australian Aboriginal girl called Molly Craig was taken from her parents and imprisoned in a Native Reserve. She escaped the next day with her 11-year-old sister and 8-year-old cousin. The journey took 9 weeks and 1600 KM. In 1940, she escaped again, with her 18-month-old daughter.
mxLvp TIL as Late Republican Rome descended into civil war, the collection of precious rocks was exploited in elite political competition. Senator Nonius refused to sell Mark Antony his opal ring for 2 million sesterces, so the triumvir proscribed him. He fled into exile with nothing but his gem.
K0jR TIL that the largest virus in the world has been called the Pandoravirus. They bore no morphological or genomic resemblance to any previously defined virus families leading the researchers to speculate that this virus may represent a previously unknown branch of the tree of life.