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TIL that some Victorians embraced the dangerous "tapeworm diet," swallowing tapeworm eggs in hopes the parasites would absorb food in the intestines, aiding weight loss. Tapeworms can live over 20 years, grow as long as 80 feet, and cause severe health issues.

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nRer TIL a railroad tunnel in the Canadian Rockies is so straight that one can see daylight from the other end over 5 miles away
j61OX TIL The Guy Who Invented the "iBeer" App for iPhone Made $20K a Day From App Store Downloads in 2008
5YVmD TIL That Christian Bale based his portrayal of Patrick Bateman on this interview of Tom Cruise on the Letterman Show because he “had this very intense friendliness with nothing behind the eyes.”
N7oO8 TIL that Scheherazade, the storyteller from One Thousand and One Nights tells her stories (Aladdin, Sinbad, ...) to the monarch so that he would stop marrying and killing a new virgin every day after his first wife betrayed him. He had already killed 1001 women when they met.
EgmD0 TIL that the one of the last major eruptions of Mt. Vesuvius prior to the destruction of Pompeii was around 1995 B.C, 2000 years before 79 A.D. It destroyed every bronze age settlement in the area. Thousands of footprints left behind by fleeing survivors can today be seen in the hardened flow stone.