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TIL that popular actor and comedian Chevy Chase got his stage name from a 15th century English poem called The Ballad of Chevy Chase, which tells the story of the battle of Otterburn between the Percys and the Douglases.

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KYgwB TIL Endorphins (the "Feel good" chemical in human brains) work by blocking the nerve cells that receive the pain signals
QNNva TIL in the early 18th century, the St. Bernard dog breed was used by monks living in St.Bernard's Pass to help rescue people after snowstorms. Their resistance to cold weather and great sense of direction made them helpful for this. They were even able to find people deeply buried under snow.
ep6nn TIL in 1949 Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 108 near Sault-au-Cochon, Quebec, crashed killing all 23 aboard following the explosion of a time bomb. Albert Guay wanted to kill his wife and get her life insurance policy ($10,000), and marry another woman.
lode5 TIL a researcher recorded more than 100 animal handlers and found it's pretty much universal -- regardless of the language spoken or the animal being handled -- that humans use short, repeated sounds to get an animal to go or speed up, and long, slow sounds to get an animal to stop or slow down.
pjQZ TIL that in the Second World War, the UK’s home guard ran out of rifles to issue to it’s soldiers, and ordered a quarter of a million medieval-era Pikes to be made to fight off the Nazis.