TIL a Mongol advisor talked the Khan out of killing all of northern China's peasants by calculating they'd pay 500,000 coins of silver a year in taxes if left alive.

TIL that in 1724 Peter the Great had Willem Mons — his wife Catherine's chamberlain and rumored lover — beheaded for corruption, then had his head preserved in alcohol for his Kunstkamera cabinet of c

TIL Elizabeth Holmes led investors to believe Theranos's blood-testing technology had been deployed by the U.S. military on the battlefield. It had never actually been deployed there.

TIL that after a plane crash in 2023, four children between the ages of 11 months old and 13 years old were left to fend for themselves in the Amazon rainforest. They were able to survive for 40 days