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TIL that the Crimean War helped to popularise facial hair in Victorian times. This was due to the large number of soldiers who returned home with the beards and mustaches they had grown to keep the cold out.

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lDrG TIL Helen Keller was a socialist and one of the founders of the ACLU. After extensive travel, she said, “I had once believed that we are all masters of our fate…Now, however, I learned that the power to rise in the world is not within the reach of everyone.”
GWE7 TIL that in 1986, a woman who sought psychiatric help discovered memories of being in a satanic cult where she was forcibly raped, had to eat babies and as a consequence developed 120 different personalities to cope. The memories were later found to be false and the therapist was sued.
W7vrd TIL that Scarlet Johansson ultimately didn't get the lead role in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" because David Fincher thought she could provoke enough lust to distract the audience from the film itself
6EgeX TIL that George RR Martin is a big fan of football, but not of Coach Belichick and the Patriots. In "A Dance with Dragons", he even references the 2007 Superbowl where the Patriots fell after a perfect season to the Giants, naming a character "Belichio" who gets eaten by giants.
grjky Today I Learned that In 6th-century BCE Acragas(modern Agrigento, Sicily), Perilaus of Athens created the Brazen Bull, a torture device for tyrant Phalaris. Disgusted, Phalaris trapped him inside, roasting him alive. Removed before death, Perilaus was then thrown off a cliff.