› added 4 years ago

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TIL that shrapnel is named after its inventor - General Henry Shrapnel

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via reddit.com

P1aXO TIL that from 1801 to 1810 a pirate named Zheng Yi Sao was active in the South China Sea, eventually rising to lead a pirate confederacy. When she retired in 1810, she had 24 ships and 1433 pirates under her personal command. She later served as a privateer and retired to run a casino, dying at 68.
0d7py TIL about the Vipeholm experiments, a series of human experiments where patients of Vipeholm Hospital for the intellectually disabled in Lund, Sweden, were fed large amounts of sweets, including "extra sticky toffee" to provoke dental caries.
J1g1k TIL that the 1st King of England made a law that said everyone had to be in bed by 8pm
wLj1W TIL that in 1604 the last recorded Milky Way supernova - visible to the naked eye in daytime - was the incident that catalyzed and laid the foundation for Galileo’s understanding that earth is not the center of the universe.
b6kMj TIL the Easter Whip tradition in the Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, and parts of Hungary involves splashing girls with water and spanking them with decorated willow branches on Easter Monday. This is believed to ensure their health, beauty, and fertility for the next year.