› added 9 years ago

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TIL When King Charles II of Navarra was sick, his doctor ordered him to be wrapped in linen and covered in brandy. Unfortunately, instead of cutting the last thread of linen with scissors, the nurse thought it’d be a great idea to burn it off, burning the King alive.

mxlmy TIL that in 1986, serial killer Wayne Nance broke into Doug and Kris Welles’s home. Despite being bound, stabbed in the chest, and then later shot, Doug managed to save his wife by shooting their attacker in one of the few known cases of a serial killer being killed by their intended victim.
R7pl1 TIL that beavers build dams because they hate the sound of running water. A researcher set up speakers that played the audio of running water in multiple beaver populated areas, and the next morning found them to be covered in layers of sticks and mud.
PYRkL TIL that Fredrick the Great, tried to introduce the potato to Germany. It failed, so he created a potato farm that had guards to make the potato's seem valuable, but the guards were ordered to "guard" the fields but were purposely bad. This act made the potato a staple in German food.
D1lvg TIL: Tomatoes are self-pollinating, meaning insects or wind aren't required. Instead they have flowers that contain both the male and female parts, so more than one plant is not needed for reproduction. The pollen falls within the flower to pollinate itself.
b9Gn0 TIL that on April 1st, 1991, a thief stole a box from the trunk of a car in New York City and discovered six partial human heads with the backs of the skulls cut away. They turned out to be specimens for study at an infirmary and not a strange April Fools' prank.