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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.

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a8w19 TIL in 2015 the US Forces wanted to update the 'loose lips, sink ships' warning from WW2, Warning against sharing information with others outside the forces. They had to tailor it for the Social Media generation, and came up with: 'loose tweets destroy fleets'.
rN0Bd TIL an autodidact with limited formal education, Joseph Stalin was a voracious reader, amassing a personal library of over 20,000 books, with a particular interest in history. He enjoyed classical music, owned around 2,700 records, and often attended the Bolshoi Theatre.
e9pJ TIL that purple as a color is similar to violet, but violet is a spectral color with its own wavelength on the visible spectrum of light whereas purple is a composite color, made by combining red and blue.
jNmrM TIL an American Heart Association study found that not only did fish oil medication not reduce the risk of cardiac events, but also increased the risk of atrial fibrillation
d8nLj TIL that Greek art strongly influenced Buddhist art following Alexander's conquests across the Middle East. Statues of Buddha did not exist before this, and Greco-Buddhism reached as far as Japan, where the wind God Fujin is still closely modeled after depictions the Greek wind God Boreas.