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TIL: President Andrew Jackson was involved in as many as 100 duels. He was shot in the chest in 1806 and took a bullet in the arm in a bar fight with Missouri Sen. Thomas Hart Benton in 1813. Most were to defend his wife’s honor.

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nMnW TIL that upon creating the world’s first machine gun, Dr. Richard J. Gatling wrote that he did so “to reduce the size of armies, to reduce the number of deaths by combat, and to show how futile war is.”
W7ZWd TIL of The People's Olympiad, which was a planned alternate Olympics backed by the USSR and communist and socialist organizations, which were to be held to protest the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. It ultimately never happened because the Spanish Civil War started on the same day as the Opening Ceremony.
PYWvJ TIL that the Mormon Church has a secretive task force that monitors what church members say, publish, or post online. Any member that criticizes the church can be reported to local church leaders, so that the offending member can be corrected, disciplined, or excommunicated.
ORRa TIL of Manaus, a Brazilian city of 2 million people deep in the Amazon Rainforest. It was once a notoriously extravagant rubber boom town in the 1800s. An opera house was built with European marble & crystal. One visiting opera troupe had half of its performers die from yellow fever in one season.
LQ6Nd TIL that male whales produce a complex song lasting 10 to 20 minutes, which they repeat for hours at a time. All the males in a group will produce the same song, which is different each season. Its purpose is not clear, though it may help induce estrus in females.