› added 4 years ago

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TIL Charles-Henri Sanson, official executioner of France from 1778-1795, who executed 2918 people - including King Louis XVI - with his own hand, intended for his eldest son to inherit his position, but that son died in 1792 after slipping off a scaffold as he displayed a severed head to the crowd

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Wk76N TIL that fraternal twins can have different fathers
pYdPA TIL Rob Reiner, Richard Dreyfuss, and Albert Brooks all went to high school together
Me6jm TIL 'Tarantula' is derived from the name of the Italian town Taranto, home of the dance called the tarentella. During the Middle Ages the tarentella was thought to be the way to cure the bite of a particular spider. The symptoms included exhibitionism, melancholia and delirium.
JYpmB TIL of Rita Crundwell, who embezzled $53.7 million during her 22 year career as treasure and controller of Dixon, Illinois. She used this money to support her championship Quarter Horse breeding operation. In 2008 alone, she was able to embezzle $5.8 million off of a city budget of $8-9 million.
aJR9 TIL French revolutionary soldier Jean Bernadotte had “Death to Kings!” tattooed on his chest. He later went on to become King of Sweden and Norway