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TIL Steven Russell escaped from prison by using laxatives to fake the symptoms of AIDS. He then called the prison, posing as a doctor, asking for prisoners interested in an experimental treatment, and volunteered. Once out of Texas, he sent death certificates to the prison stating he had died

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d8Xn8 TIL that towards the end of WWI a 'second Paris' was built to fool German bombers into not bombing the real Paris. It was complete with a Champs-Elysées and Gard Du Nord, wooden replicas of buildings, and white, yellow, and red lights to create the effect of machines working at night.
KO9M6 TIL the reason Phoenix can exist in the middle of the desert is because in 1868 Jack Swilling discovered the ruins of a 27,000 sqmi canal system built by the Hohokam. He restarted the canals and today that infrastructure, with modern expansions, waters the city of over a million in the hot desert.
16o07 TIL the Titanic’s sister ship, HMT Olympic, rammed and sunk a U-Boat in World War I. Olympic survived unscathed.
R5l1a TIL the founder of the Mayo Clinic taught osteology using the skeleton of an executed Dakota chief that had been stolen from his grave. The remains were not returned until the 1990s
pYyNZ TIL: That the use of toilet paper started in ancient China around the 2nd century BC. Prior to this, the ancient Romans used a "tersorium", consisting of a sponge on a stick. The stick would be soaked in a water channel in front of a toilet, and then stuck through a hole at the front of the toilet.