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TIL that Sarah Henry, wife of American Founding Father Patrick Henry, developed mental illness after the birth of her last child. Patrick, then governor of Virginia, didn’t want to send her to an asylum; so he confined her to a basement room, bound in a straitjacket, until her death.

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6Dxw TIL that Jeremy Bentham, a famous ethicist, still attends board meetings at University College of London because the board approved that he could attend every meeting. Disregarding the fact that he has been dead for 83 years now.
0K0L TIL when Beethoven was challenged to an improvisation duel by one of his rivals named Steibelt, Beethoven took a piece of Steibelt’s music, turned it upside down, played it, then improvised on that theme for over an hour. Steibelt simply left halfway through.
pKgO TIL that one of Seattle’s wealthiest citizens in the late 19th century was a madame. Lou Graham’s brothel made her so rich that she loaned money; her loans helped save other wealthy people after the Panic of 1893. After dying of syphilis, Graham’s estate had no heirs so went to Seattle schools.
6AZm TIL a British bioengineering company has genetically modified genes in male mosquitoes to pass a ‘suicide gene’ on to its offspring in an effort to reduce Dengue Fever.
b9Mp0 TIL After seeing his “incredibly ugly” newborn, Jian Feng accused his wife of cheating. She admitted to several plastic surgeries before the two met. He sued her for false pretense, claiming she misled him for hiding the cosmetic history. He won.