Today I Learned (TIL)

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/One_Needleworker5218 on 2025-07-19 20:17:21+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Ainsley-Sorsby on 2025-07-19 19:54:31+00:00.

Original Title: TIL One of Niccolo Machiavelli's many talents was improvised song writing: his friends would try to challenge his rhyming skills by opening a random page of any random Latin poet and asking him to translate and turn into into a song, which he was able to do on the spot while playing the lira

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Future_Usual_8698 on 2025-07-19 19:03:42+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/starberry101 on 2025-07-19 20:06:59+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/NewlyDiscoverdMe on 2025-07-19 19:16:19+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/MeatUnusual2098 on 2025-07-19 18:01:37+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that in 1994, Pearl Jam canceled their summer tour after discovering Ticketmaster was adding unfair service charges. In protest, they began building their own venues in rural areas and sold tickets directly to fans to keep prices low and avoid corporate influence.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/TheHabro on 2025-07-19 16:47:46+00:00.

Original Title: Til Sea otters influence the amount of C02 in the atmosphere by controlling population of sea urchins that in turn eat kelp. Annually, kelp forests store an equivalent of yearly emission of 4 million passenger cards.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/MrVernonDursley on 2025-07-19 16:14:07+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/fearlessphosgene on 2025-07-19 15:35:14+00:00.

Original Title: TIL of William Mullens, who led the only intact unit of the 51st Division to escape France in June 1940. He led about 160 men to the beach, under heavy fire for 6 miles, and on the way captured a village with only revolvers. The Germans assumed it was a strong counterattack and fled the village.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/isUKexactlyTsameasUS on 2025-07-19 13:32:23+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/tyrion2024 on 2025-07-19 14:29:25+00:00.

Original Title: TIL $157K worth of stolen Magic: the Gathering and Dungeon & Dragons gaming cards were recovered after they were turned in by the party who bought them from the thieves for $4K. The cards had been stolen at Gen Con 2023 when 2 men simply walked out with a pallet that had 115 boxes of the cards on it

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/tyrion2024 on 2025-07-19 14:28:57+00:00.

Original Title: TIL in 2022 a chess-playing robot broke the finger of its 7-year-old opponent after the boy didn't give it enough time to respond & attempted to move again. The robot held his finger in place for 15 seconds before bystanders were able to pry it free. The boy then played with his finger in a cast.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Rufusisking on 2025-07-19 13:11:20+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/_Thermalflask on 2025-07-19 13:08:04+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Lizm3 on 2025-07-19 10:52:37+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/metapolitical_psycho on 2025-07-19 10:36:44+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that in 1691, a man was called to testify as a witness to robbery and told the court that God turned him into a werewolf so he could raid Hell and fight the demons there. The judges took his claim seriously and banished him from Livonia for sorcery.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/ApprehensiveBet6501 on 2025-07-19 08:46:11+00:00.

Original Title: Today I learned about Nils Gustaf Håkansson, who, at the age of 66, won the 1951 Sverigeloppet—a 1,096-mile stage bicycle race across Sweden. He completed the race in just over 6 days and 14 hours, finishing more than 24 hours ahead of his nearest competitor.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Algrinder on 2025-07-19 07:03:24+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that Pope Celestine V resigned just 5 months into his papacy in 1294 because he never wanted the job and wanted to go back to his cave, he was chosen after a 2-year deadlock, felt overwhelmed by Vatican politics, issued a decree allowing popes to quit, and then used it to step down.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/0khalek0 on 2025-07-19 06:44:22+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/sarded on 2025-07-19 02:40:32+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/HRUndercover222 on 2025-07-19 00:13:26+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Salem1690s on 2025-07-19 01:48:02+00:00.

Original Title: TIL King George III had empathy for Native Americans and pushed the the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which forbade all new settlements west of a line drawn along the Appalachian Mountains, which was delineated as an Indian Reserve. This angered many Colonists.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/Physical_Hamster_118 on 2025-07-19 01:11:06+00:00.

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/JoeyZasaa on 2025-07-19 01:01:06+00:00.

Original Title: TIL that during the American Revolutionary War, African-Americans served in the British army over 2-to-1 versus in the American army because they viewed a British victory as a way to achieve freedom from slavery

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The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/jacknunn on 2025-07-19 00:43:36+00:00.

Original Title: TIL Sweden is capable of domestically building submarines, frigates, jet fighters and satellites, despite having a population of just over 10 million people. Per capita it is one of the largest arms exporters on the planet.