› added 5 years ago

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TIL: while George Washington's will does say hhis saleves should be free, it should only be done at his wife's insistence. Martha Washington would only free them when she came under the belief that they were trying to kill her.

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OEx6 TIL that after the Tienanmen Square Massacre, the Chinese government billed the families of the protesters for the cost of the bullets used to kill their loved ones.
N05e TIL that two inmates sued the state of Alabama, claiming the cramped space in their cell was a cruel and unusual punishment. The state argued that students at Auburn University actually paid to live in even smaller living space in the Magnolia Dorm.
5vJp TIL When he was a student at Trinity College, Lord Byron was so infuriated that pet dogs were banned that he acquired a tame bear. He argued that as bears weren’t specifically mentioned in their rules, there were no legal grounds for complaint. Lord Byron eventually won the argument.
N7XRP TIL that in 1980, nuclear physicist Glenn Seaborg transmuted several thousand atoms of bismuth into gold at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. Seaborg's technique would have been far too expensive to enable routine manufacturing of gold, but his work was close to the mythical Philosopher's Stone.
El8W TIL That JRR Tolkien had such a fascination with finland and its kalevala (an old book of poetry and songs) that he based his elvish language off of finnish principles and grammar, as well as wrote his most famous works after the kalevala’s influence on him.