› added 3 years ago

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TIL that Ken Jennings would have lost his first game on Jeopardy if not for a technicality allowing players to write only the last name of the correct response in Final Jeopardy. Jennings went on to win 74 games and over $2.5 million, eventually becoming the show's "Greatest of All Time" contestant.

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JXOB TIL Jack Abernathy was known as “Catch-‘em-alive Jack” because he would catch wolves by jumping off a horse, shoving his hand in the wolf’s mouth so it was unable to bite down, and holding it down until it became docile. He performed this trick for Teddy Roosevelt during a hunt in Oklahoma in 1905.
N70J6 TIL that although it is only the third highest mountaintop in the world, no mountaineer has ever reached the summit of Kangchenjunga. This is because every ascent has deliberately stopped short of the peak, to honor a promise given to the local inhabitants that the top of the mountain remain intact.
DyrP TIL Sacagawea was kidnapped at 12, sold as a slave and forced into marriage at 13, and was 15 years old and 6 months pregnant when she joined Lewis & Clark’s expedition.
m1Pop TIL the first submersible, the USS Turtle, was built in 1775.
OGJoe TIL in the 1980s and 1990s, there were annual Nickelodeon Super Toy Run events which gave lucky child winners 5 minutes to run rampant in a toy store (Toys R Us or Kay Bee Toys) and put toys in shopping carts. The child could keep all the toys he or she brought past the finish line in time.