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TIL the International Sweethearts of Rhythm was an all-female, multiracial band that toured in the Jim Crow South in the 1930s and ’40s, breaking both gender and racial barriers, with white bandmates wearing blackface to avoid charges of race-mixing.

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4XYw5 TIL the goal of the 1993 WTC bombing was to collapse the North Tower into the South Tower, destroying both. The building's architect testified that the plan likely would have succeeded if the bomb had been placed slightly closer to the building's foundation.
Z8OyQ TIL Dissecting human bodies was taboo in antiquity up to the 16th century. The only people to systematically do it before then were Erasistratus and Herophilus from Alexandria. Their work pioneered medicine and anatomy but was criticized by contemporaries, especially their practice of vivisections
e0YW4 TIL of the Kengir Gulag Uprising, where inmates assumed control over a camp. Due to the large body of educated inmates the 40 days of freedom saw the creation of plays, an ex-noble organizing a café, priests organizing marriages, engineers creating improvised radios and a hydroelectric powerstation
gr16L TIL After the success of the 1977 anime Rascal the Raccoon, up to 1,500 raccoons were imported as pets each year afterwards. Their descendants have spread to the entire country, damaged 80% of the Buddhist temples, and cause over $215,000 in agricultural damage each year.
W7VVN TIL Black Americans are almost three times as likely to be vegan and vegetarian than other Americans