› added 9 years ago

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TIL The most successful pirate in history was a Chinese prostitute. Cheng I Sao commanded 80,000 sailors & a fleet bigger than most country’s navies, which is why the government had to give up and offer her a truce. She retired with her loot & opened a gambling house before passing away peacefully.

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7ryOL TIL America made bat bombs during World War II. The bomb consisted of a bomb-shaped casing with over a thousand compartments, each containing a hibernating Mexican free-tailed bat with a small, timed incendiary bomb attached.
4XGaX TIL It is estimated that 16 gorillas were killed during the Rwandan war, but the overall population increased from 320 to 355. Gorillas survived because they moved father up the mountains, away from violent humans and no faction wanted the bad publicity of being responsible for a gorilla death
ZJgG TIL that there were four cameras aimed at the FBI building in the OKC bombing, but the tapes of all four are blank at 9:02 during the actual bombing itself, as the tapes were being replaced.
Y7gGx TIL Beethoven’s 3rd Symphony was initially his tribute to Napoleon, whom he admired. But when Napoleon crowned himself emperor in 1804, Beethoven angrily declared that Napoleon had become a tyrant, and he erased Bonaparte's name from the score’s title page.
xBlb TIL: A mother sickened her son by feeding him massive amounts of salt (eventually killing him) because she liked the attention she got on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media for having a very ill child.