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TIL of Wenceslao Moguel, a Mexican soldier fighting for Pancho Villa who was captured and sentenced to death without a trial in 1915. He was shot 9 times in the body and once in the head but managed to survive and live (disfigured) until 1976.

by whatilearned June 26, 2022, 1:10 pm

5 Points
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3 Comments

TIL that all pet Syrian hamsters are descended from a single brother and sister captured in 1930.

by whatilearned June 24, 2022, 3:07 am

6 Points
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TIL that when Joseph Stalin’s son Yakov was captured in WW2, Stalin imprisoned Yakov’s wife as punishment and refused to trade him for a captured German officer, quipping ‘I will not trade a marshal for a lieutenant’.

by whatilearned June 19, 2022, 8:38 pm

8 Points
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TIL In 1014, Byzantine Emperor Basil II captured several thousand Bulgarian soldiers, put them into groups of 100, and blinded 99 in every group. The last soldiers had only one eye gouged out and were ordered to lead their blind friends home. Upon seeing this, Tsar Samuel died of a heart attack.

by whatilearned June 18, 2022, 1:07 am

9 Points
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TIL Pirate Richard Worley was the captain of the New York’s Revenge during the Golden Age of Piracy. After he captured his second ship, he named it the New York Revenge’s Revenge.

by whatilearned June 16, 2022, 10:51 pm

9 Points
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TIL 70,000 NYC geese have been killed in response to US Airways 1549 collision with a flock of geese (Miracle on the Hudson). 1,235 geese were captured and gassed and 1,739 eggs were coated in oil to smother the goslings in the months immediately following the water landing.

by whatilearned May 27, 2022, 2:36 am

12 Points
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TIL that the saying “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” may have first been said by the hero Gilgamesh. This conversation with the god Shamesh is from the Epic of Gilgamesh, captured on clay tablets 4000 years ago in the world’s oldest written story. Jump down to the beginning of Part III

by whatilearned May 26, 2022, 4:18 pm

12 Points
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TIL about General Santa Anna’s wooden leg. The leg was captured by an Illinois regiment in 1847 and is now on display at the Illinois State Military Museum.

by whatilearned May 24, 2022, 2:58 pm

12 Points
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TIL of “Unit 731”, a secret Japanese research facility disguised as a water treatment plant during WWII. Responsible for some of the most notorious war crimes ever committed, researchers captured by the USA were secretly given immunity in exchange for the data gathered from their human experiments.

by whatilearned April 22, 2022, 12:29 pm

12 Points
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TIL USS Red Rover (1859) was a 650-ton Confederate States of America steamer that the United States Navy captured. After refitting the vessel, the Union used it as a hospital ship during the American Civil War.

by whatilearned April 18, 2022, 4:22 pm

12 Points
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TIL During Iraq-Gulf-War-2, US military/contractors would frequently detonate/destroy captured enemy weapons/amo so much so, that the stack often exploded at a respectable fraction of an early-style atomic bomb. (Here’s a .1 kiloton explosion complete with spectacular shockwave and mushroom cloud).

by whatilearned April 17, 2022, 10:05 am

12 Points
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TIL of Krao Farini, an American sideshow performer who was falsely advertised as the missing link between humans and apes. In reality, she had Hypertrichosis, which causes abnormal hair growth. Krao was allegedly captured in Laos, and was forced to perform in America since the age of 8 or 9.

by whatilearned April 14, 2022, 2:54 am

12 Points
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