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TIL Magdalene laundries were catholic institutions made to rehabilitate promiscuous women through forced labour. They housed an estimated 30,000 women who were deemed to have committed moral crimes.

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1axn7 TIL the lead singer on this Stealers Wheel track was Gerry Rafferty, he of Baker Street and One More Down The Line fame. Mind blown.
E1M40 TIL the Mediterranean island country of Malta has been inhabited since around 5900 BCE, and has been ruled by the Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Greeks, Arabs, Normans, Aragonese, Knights of Malta, French and British, all before becoming independent in 1964.
R7mV9 TIL the Pharoah Akhenaten broke tradition by only allowing the worship of Aten, the sun god. The statues of other gods were destroyed and many monuments to Aten were built. After his death, Akhenaten's monuments were dismantled, his statues were destroyed, and his name excluded from lists of rulers.
RKl9 TIL that while most humans have three types of cone cells in their eyes, there are known cases where people have four, widening the spectrum and exactness of colors they can see. There are also cases where people lack a blocking lens, enabling them to see ultraviolet light.
xDVo TIL that MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) was done at the ancient Olympics. It is called Pankration and is the only event that wasn’t reinstated with the creation of the modern Olympics.