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TIL Epilepsy kills as many people per year as Breast Cancer

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v10lK TIL that the 1905 film The Little Train Robbery is the first ever parody film. The film is a sequel to the serious 1903 film The Great Train Robbery. Both films had the same director.
xV7RD TIL that New York once banned women from smoking in public to “save their souls.”
loGk1 TIL the US patent office actually granted a patent on Indian Basmati rice to the prince of Liechtenstein (an alpine European microstate), in a case of "bio-piracy." The patent was eventually revoked after an international outcry.
5Yr0P TIL of the amazing life of Josiah Henson, who walked 900 miles, with his wife and children, to escape slavery. He founded a colony in Canada and helped 118 others to freedom, and was the inspiration for the book "Uncle Tom's Cabin"
j6XAQ TIL Silphium is an unidentified/extinct plant - the exact identity is unclear, highly debated - that was used as a contraceptive and an abortifacient by ancient Greeks and Romans. The plant was also used as seasoning, medicine, perfume, aphrodisiac.