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TIL The founder of France's criminal investigative agency, Eugène François Vidocq, was an escaped convict. Vidocq's superiors would repeatedly receive messages from jails demanding Vidocq's arrest, they were ignored and ultimately Vidocq received a pardon from King Louis XVIII.

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rgVW TIL that the once-thought useless human appendix has evolved at least 29 times, and been lost a maximum of 12 times–but evolution keeps bringing it back, possibly due to it having an important role in immune function.
X5GQ TIL That the opening scene in Starship Troopers, an infantry advertisment, was adapted shot for shot from a Nazi propaganda movie called Triumph of Will. The scene featured an outdoor rally of the militarized and indoctrinated german labour force, the Reichsarbeitsdienst.
W7QDB TIL about Juliane Koepcke. At age 17 she survived alone 11 days in a rainforest, becoming the only survivor of the LANSA 508 crash. The plane was struck by lightning & broke apart in flight scattering more than a dozen passengers. Her unorthodox education allowed her to survive the hard journey out.
4kNNg TIL the letter 'Q' is shaped shaped after a monkey's body and tail, from the Canaanite letter "Kuf", which also means monkey
VB0Pm TIL Peter Norman, the Australian silver medalist photographed in the iconic 1968 Olympics photo alongside two black athletes with a raised fist wore a badge in support of their protest, and turned down a lucrative job offer during the 2000 Sydney Olympics because he refused to renounce his actions.