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TIL: Ancient Romans used a community sponge on a stick to wipe their butts. The wealthy carried their own shit sticks. [NSFW]

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5pd9 TIL Sand Pirates exist, along with a black market for sand. Pirates come to Cambodia and illegally dredge up sand, then the sell it to Singapore, which uses the sand to expand its coastline.
7lb TIL Two Men Murdered 15 People Over the Course of a Year in Order to Sell the Bodies as Cadavers for College Students to Dissect.
DrEp TIL that the Eiffel Tower was originally supposed to be in Barcelona. But thinking the thing would end up looking like an eyesore, the city rejected Gustave Eiffel’s plans, and he was forced to repitch the project elsewhere. Luckily, Eiffel found a home for his idea in Paris.
RpGj TIL that a Russian family took a few possessions/seeds, fled into the forest as political refugees and were cut off from all human contact for 40 years until they were discovered by a group of geologists who accidentally saw their settlement from a helicopter.
v1yLB TIL that some frog species are freeze-tolerant: they will freeze in the winter to the point that their heart stops, and thaw and repair once temperatures go up.