› added 4 years ago

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TIL James Earl Ray, the man who assassinated Martin Luther King Jr, is the only person to escape Missouri State Penitentiary

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e89k TIL: A Swiss man has a tattoo which sold for $205k and will be skinned from his back when he dies.
pYwGb TIL about Walter Bonatti and Amir Mehdi, forced to spend a night on K2 without a tent because the first ascenders were afraid of being overshadowed. Bonatti upstaged them 4 years later summitting the even harder Gasherbrum IV; Mehdi was maimed by frostbite and never climbed again.
R7vJ1 TIL that the U.S. Surgeon General found that smoking caused more than 20 million premature deaths in the United States between 1965 and 2014
ADDKB TIL that Ted Kaczynski got the codename "UNABOMBER" because his bombings targeted Universities "UN" and Airlines "A"
neQX7 TIL an analysis of dozens of ancient civilizations revealed that they only had an average lifespan of 340 years before reverting to a more primitive state, being absorbed into a stronger society, or disappearing completely.