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TIL that a 1920s anti-catholic mob, led by the Klan, became convinced the pope was on a train in Indiana. A corset salesman spent half an hour convincing the mob he wasn’t the pope in disguise.

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7rdx TIL the 1956 Republican party platform read “We are proud of and shall continue our far-reaching and sound advances in matters of basic human needs…We are determined that our government remain warmly responsive to the urgent social and economic problems of our people.”
paDe TIL a 66 year old man went to the hospital because of stomach pain, to discover he had been a woman his whole life.
LQmNZ TIL that in ancient Greece, the god Dionysus was honored with wild celebrations that often involved erotic rituals, including group sex, as part of worship.
0wnB1 TIL Alexander Selkirk, the bases for Robinson Crusoe survived 4 years on an island where nightly he was attacked by rats but solved this by domesticating feral cats. One day he fell off a cliff hunting goats and landed on his prey, sparing him a broken back.
Zpwm4 TIL that Andrew Watson was the first professional black football player, accepting a paid position at Bootle FC from 1887, and prior to that he was also the first black international player, having captained the (amateur) Scotland national team in 1881