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1298

TIL Karl Marx once participated in a London pub crawl. After 18 pubs he and his friends started throwing rocks at street lamps - at which point he was chased by 4 policemen who he managed to outrun.

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1a7gr TIL jesters were asked to tell bad news to the king that no one else dared deliver. The best-known example was in 1340 after the French fleet was destroyed by the English. The French King's jester told him the English sailors "don't even have the guts to jump into the water like our brave French".
6976J TIL that somebody won a Nobel prize by treating late stage syphilis with malaria-infected blood
Barb TIL, in the 1850’s, the South African Xhosa tribe had a teenage prophet who claimed all crops had to be burned and all cattle be killed, so that the spirits can sweep the British settlers to sea. 300k-400k cattle were killed, tragically resulting in famine that even caused cannibalism.
eJk4 TIL that Benjamin Franklin enjoyed the company of older women to such an extent, he wrote a letter explaining why it he should make one his mistress. He backed his reasoning by pointing out older women couldn’t have children and that the sex could be just as good.
w4k1 TIL In Star Trek: The Next Generation, the Ferengi were initially created to succeed the Klingons as the new villainous arch rivals of the Federation. After their debut episode, they were rewritten to subsequently be comic foils due to producers finding their appearance comical and nonthreatening.