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TIL A swimmer in the 2000 Olympics had taken up swimming only eight months earlier and had practiced in a 20m(66ft) pool at a hotel. Before the Olympics he had never even seen a 50m(160ft) swimming pool. He won his heat and today he’s the coach of the Equatorial Guinea swimming squad.

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7rA5r TIL of Vedius Pollio, famous for feeding his slaves to eels. When Emperor Augustus witnessed an attempt, over a slave breaking glass, he had the slave freed and all of Pollio's glasses broken as punishment. He would go on to demolish Pollio's house for the incident.
LQgwZ TIL the term "house poor," which is anyone whose housing expenses account for an exorbitant percentage of their monthly budget.
7nZr TIL that spiders tune each strand of their web to a specific frequency by making some strans tighter than others so that when something is caught in it, the spider can easily pinpoint where it is. This is also used for determining whether what cause the sound is a food or a potential mate.
dGR9 TIL The reason PINs are typically four digits is that the inventor’s wife could only remember four digits. Had she not mentioned this they would be six digits.
rdnx TIL that you would not die instantly if you were exposed in space. Scientists estimate that a human being can survive 15-30 seconds in open space (X-post r/TheBestLists)