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TIL Joan of Leeds, a 14th century nun, faked her own death by crafting a dummy “in the likeness of her body” in order to escape her convent & allegedly pursue “the way of carnal lust.” She was discovered around 30 miles (48 km) away living "indecently" with a man & was denounced as an apostate.

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5VxYD TIL that an Illinois high school English teacher told two students, "Neither one of you will ever learn to write". Robert St. John, one of the students, became a famous journalist with many news scoops, including the Japanese surrender in WW2. The other student was Ernest Hemingway.
PY8lV TIL The Nazis, during WW2, planned and worked on building a “sun gun” that was a big mirror orbiting the Earth that could concentrate the suns energy into a single beam and rain down fire on the Earth from above, burning anyone and everything in its sights
p8g7A TIL that the US military was so unprepared leading up to WWII, General George Patton personally bought tools and parts from the Sears-Roebuck mail order catalog to get the 2nd Armored Division to operational status.
6ENWX TIL Socrates was very worried that the increasing use of books in education would have the effect of ruining students' ability to memorise things. We only remember this now because Plato wrote it down.
mxmdo TIL the Bajau peoples of South East Asia are the first known humans that are genetically adapted to dive. Their bodies are genetically modified for diving, so much so that they can dive at around 200 ft deep for as long as 13 minutes.