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TIL Mississippi set up a commission that became a de facto intelligence organization which surveilled people suspected of being anti-segregationist. The commission was eventually linked to the murder of three civil rights workers. It existed between 1956 and 1977 and profiled over 87 000 people.

JY9R4 TIL that men receive 63% longer jail sentences on average than women do and women are twice as likely to avoid incarceration if convicted for the same crime.
8elmL TIL Australia’s Aboriginal inhabitants, once thought isolated from the rest of the world for 45,000 years, have genetic markers showing mass migration from India 4,000 years ago, which also coincides with the first appearance of dingos on the island-continent
xNAD TIL McDonald’s almost got rid of its golden arches in the 1960’s. The arches were only kept because a psychologist they hired said they had great Freudian importance in the subconscious mind of customers. They represented “mother McDonald’s breasts.”
dPO8 TIL in 1986 a Kansas sheriff rented a camera and VCR from his local video store, filming a 90 minute sex tape with his wife. Upon returning the equipment, he inadvertently left the tape inside the VCR. Soon enough, his whole town had watched and passed around copies of “The Sheriff Rides Again”
R7Mw9 TIL The first sitting member of Congress to be assassinated was an Arkansas Congressman murdered by the K.K.K in 1868. Despite identifying his killer by name before his death the assassin was never arrested or charged with a crime.