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TIL: James Milne Wilson was born and died on February 29

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oLxW TIL Paraguay’s first dictator, José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, forbade colonial citizens from marrying one another and allowed them to marry only blacks, mulattoes or natives, in order to break the power of colonial-era elites and to create a mixed-race or mestizo society.
7roDP TIL- Private Baker and his comrades came under attack by a Japanese force. Baker was hit early. His comrades left him propped against a tree and gave him a pistol, which had eight bullets, American forces retook the position, they found the pistol, and eight dead Japanese soldiers around Baker.
Z89BQ TIL the Queen owns all of the U.K.'s swans. Every year there is an annual census of all the swans in the River Thames, a centuries-old tradition known as the Swan Upping that takes place the third week in July. This years Swan Upping started today.
PYBaG TIL that Judith Viorst (author of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day) wrote a poem about her parents' deaths when she was seven. Both her parents were still alive at the time, and were not amused.
mxnmo TIL nobody under the age of 32 has ever experienced a cooler-than-average month