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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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M7P9W TIL In 2020, the wine market was expected to be worth $418 billion with experts estimating that around 20% of all the wines sold around the world are counterfeit.
0wN9N TIL There is an artificial hill in Italy, over 100 feet tall, made entirely of empty olive oil pots, carefully placed over a period of 250 years by ancient Romans.
x604D TIL that MGM execs referred to Judy Garland as an “ugly duckling” and "little hunchback," made her wear caps on her teeth and rubber disks in her nose, often fed her a diet of chicken soup and coffee to ensure she didn’t gain weight, and allegedly gave her amphetamines and barbiturates as a child.
WkxrL TIL the Japanese high-speed rail system has a network of seismometers that will stop their bullet trains in the event of an earthquake. This system was activated just 12 seconds before the 2011 earthquake and tsunami and as a result, only one bullet train on its test run derailed that day.
JYLl1 TIL about the world's roundest object intended for re-defining exactly one kilogram by counting the number of silicon-28 atoms that forms it and redefining the Avogadro's number