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TIL The Mesopotamian Empire and the Babylonian Empire were the first civilizations to introduce the use of sanitary sewerage system.

Bg0wb TIL students once made Oxford the murder capital of late medieval England. A 2023 study found that it had a murder rate 4-5x higher than that of London or York & 50x higher than current rates in 21st century English cities. The mix of young male students & booze was often a powder keg for violence.
ayV9 TIL the Ancient Romans had a method for choosing the best puppies out of a litter which involved surrounding a litter with an oil-soaked string and setting it on fire. The mother dog would jump over the ring of flames and rescue each puppy one by one, it was believed, in order of their merit.
Golg TIL The Massachusetts Language, once spoken by several Algonquin tribes, went extinct in the 1800s. However several documents survived such as Bibles, treaties, and sales papers. In 1993 the Wampanoag tribe started teaching classes and now there are over 400 secondary and 4 native speakers.
jNwXa TIL that William Wallace ("Braveheart") was born around 550 years before the kilt was invented. That means it would be more accurate to dress William Shakespeare (1564) in a spacesuit (1961) (only around 400 years difference).
D1Pyp TIL Bayezid II, an Ottoman Sultan that took in displaced Jews from the Spanish Inquisition, reportedly taunted the King of Spain by saying: "You venture to call Ferdinand a wise ruler, he who has impoverished his own country and enriched mine!"