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TIL about Sati, a medieval practice among some Indians by which a recently widowed woman either voluntarily or by use of force commited suicide as a result of her husband's death. It was considered the highest expression of wifely devotion to a dead husband and was said to purge her of all her sins.

l7RaB TIL that Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977) had 11 children in total and 7 of them are still alive. The youngest, Christopher Chaplin, is just 62 years old. Charlie Chaplin also had a half-brother, George Dryden, whose son would be the drummer for Jefferson Airplane.
AoBl TIL a Soviet scientist, that pioneered artificial insemination, attempted to create human-chimpanzee hybrids by injected human sperm into female chimps. After failing, he had plans to inject ape sperm into human females, but was arrested and stopped in 1930.
1bP4 TIL that a consultant for Richard Nixon suggested a pro-administration news channel to be paid for by the White House dedicated to putting the GOP in a better light. This man was Roger Ailes, who went on to start Fox News in 1996.
J1vWB TIL: In 1952 British politician Christopher Mayhew, in a rare and 'unbroadcast' BBC Panorama special, once demonstrated the effects of mescaline hydrochloride, leading to a series of predictably comical incongruities.
9YdXr TIL of Syndrome K: a fake disease that Italian doctors made up to save Jews who had fled to their hospital seeking protection from the Nazis. Syndrome K "patients" were quarantined and the Nazis were told that it was a deadly, disfiguring, and highly contagious illness. They saved at least 20 lives.