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TIL of John Joe Gray, a fugitive who has been holed up with his family on a ranch in Texas since 2000. The sheriff has refused to attempt to arrest him for fear of “going up there and getting one of my young deputies killed.”

D7Kp TIL that in 2006, all outdoor advertisements were banned in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Within a year, 15000 billboards were taken down in South America’s largest city.
e0JxD TIL that the mousetrap is the "most frequently invented device in American history". The American Patent and Trademark Office has issued a total 4400 mousetrap patents, and 400 applications are still made yearly. Only 20 of these inventions have been commercially successful.
9YWQQ TIL of Hatshepsut, the first female ruler of ancient Egypt who acted as a full pharaoh. In art, she had herself depicted as a male ruler; she wore a false beard, had her breasts reduced and deemphasized, and her shoulders portrayed as broad and manly. She brought Egypt into a period of prosperity.
VMge4 TIL: We know how ancient Sanskrit sounded because in the fifth century BCE, the Indian grammarian Panini produced a complete grammar of the language, including how all sounds are pronounced. The complexity of his linguistic analysis wasn't replicated until the 20th century.
O7d6 TIL the first commercial digital navigation system, Etak, was released in 1985, before commercial GPS. The founders had to digitize their own maps which were so accurate they’re still in use today, including in Apple’s Maps app.