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154

TIL During the California Gold Rush a Chinese laundry man named John-John washed enough gold dust out of pants cuffs and shirttails of miners to set himself up for life.

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m5Vp TIL that wheelchair athletes with spinal injuries will sometimes intentionally injure themselves on the lower body (e.g. break a toe), causing their bodies to respond by raising blood pressure and enhaincing their performance. This practice has been banned as cheating.
D1PPp TIL of the plant Silphium, which was believed to conveniently double up as an aphrodisiac and contraceptive, but is now regrettably extinct
9ROD TIL that jaguars have been reported to eat the hallucinogenic Ayahuasca root before they hunt. Indigenous people of the Amazon believe the jaguars do it to sharpen their senses.
4XJ45 TIL that in 19th Century London, John Chadwick obsessively believed that cholera was caused by 'bad air' and his actions to 'cure' it lead directly to the additional deaths of fourteen thousand Londoners
eO6b TIL that the Iranian crown jewels are considered so valuable that they are still used as a reserve to back Iranian currency.