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TIL On Christmas Eve 1969, Francisco Macias Nguema had 186 suspected dissidents executed in the national football stadium in Malabo, where 150 were shot and the remaining 36 were buried up to their necks and eaten alive by red ants, while the amplifiers played Mary Hopkin's song Those Were the Days

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0JvA TIL a former FBI agent changed his name to FNU LNU - an acronym for “first name unknown/last name unknown” - to confuse the police and then became the Sherrif of a rogue county
1aZ44 TIL in the civil war, the commander of the Union "lightning brigade" personally took out a loan to buy his soldiers advanced new repeating rifles because the government would not supply them. Using the firepower advantage afforded by the new rifles, his brigade proved extremely effective in combat.
E1KGX TIL that wood knots are formed by new wood growing around dead branches from when the tree was younger
OGP57 til E. E. Cummings preferred capitalizing his name. "e. e. cummings" was popularized by his publishers, to reflect his odd style. After his death, one critic claimed the author legally de-capitalized his name, but Cummings' wife said this was an utter lie. Still, the tradition stuck around.
b9Xvj TIL about Mike the Headless Chicken (1945-1947) that lived for 18 months after his head had been cut off, which was confirmed by University of Utah. The axe removed most of the head but missed the jugular, leaving an ear and some of the brain stem intact. He was kept alive feeding via eyedropper.