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TIL Alcatraz's prison guards created the myths about man eating sharks and deadly waters of San Francisco to discourage prisoners from escaping. There is only one recorded shark fatality in San Francisco in 1959

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kOvwm TIL that during the USA's "Great Depression" in the 1930s, librarians in Kentucky rode around on horseback, dispensing books to over 50,000 families and 155 public schools: "one librarian had to hike her 18-mile route when her mule died"
J5bj TIL Cooking show celebrity Alton Brown was the cinematographer for the music video for R.E.M.’s “The One I Love.”
rR6M TIL that Judit Polgar, a female chess player who defeated Kasparov, Karpov, and Spassky, was part of an experiment by her father to prove (chess) genius is made, not born.
KOKbQ TIL Spaceman Spiff from Calvin and Hobbes was written as a parody of the space opera genre, spoofing Flash Gordon and Star Wars.
ONme TIL that Catherine Kerkow hijacked an airplane from Los Angeles to Algeria in 1972. Last seen in France in 1975, she has yet to be caught.