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TIL Tom Petty wrote the song "I Wont Back Down" after an arsonist burned down his house and he escaped with just the clothes on his back.

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6J7Z TIL that before the Soviet takeover, Afghan women comprised 50% of government workers, 70% of schoolteachers, and 40% of doctors in Kabul. Now the literacy rate for women is 12.6%. Only 6% of women get a high school education.
78VXX TIL: After organizers told Roberta Gibbs women weren't capable of marathons, she dressed in men's clothes, hid near the starting line & joined the middle of the pack at the '66 Boston Marathon. When runners figured out her disguise, they began cheering. She was the 1st woman to finish the race.
x6K4o TIL that while Nobody Beats the Wiz was indeed an actual electronics chain in the northeast, the Seinfeld character was not in their real-life commercials. The Seinfeld character was based on Crazy Eddie, another northeast electronics chain.
5pwR TIL that it is illegal to collect or possess eagle feathers in the United States, and only enrolled members of a federally recognized Native American tribe may legally possess them.
Lgl9 TIL Nikola Tesla was in favor of sterilising criminals and mentally unstable and believed that by 2100 no one who is not a desirable parent should be permitted to produce progeny