› added 9 years ago

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TIL Tim Duncan grew up in the US Virgin Islands where he was gearing up for the 1992 Olympics as a competitive swimmer until Hurricane Hugo destroyed the island’s only Olympic-sized pool. The only alternative was to swim in the ocean, and Duncan was afraid of sharks, so he turned to basketball.

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OGJJa TIL Kiviak is a traditional food from Greenland that is made of little seabird packed and fermented in a seal skin. Up to 500 whole birds, beaks and feathers included, are packed into the seal skin and then hidden in a heap of stones and left to ferment over the course of three months.
0d8Xj TIL that Apollo 12 astronauts secretly brought a camera timer on the space mission. The two who landed on the moon planned to take a selfie with both of them to mystify people back on Earth. The plan failed when they could not find the timer.
loJpV TIL that using his knowledge of telephone systems, Kevin Poulsen, alias “Dark Dante,” hacked the phone lines of a radio station to become the winning caller for a brand new Porsche. He was sentenced to 5 years and banned from using computers for years. Later he reinvented himself as a journalist.
l7G9A TIL Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco—African countries—are geographically closer to mainland Europe than Malta, an official European country.
neZ7W TIL baseball has a “golden ticket” that gives free admission to any game. It’s given to players after 8 years in the major leagues, people who have worked for a team for 25 years, and other VIPs. NASA astronauts, returning Vietnam POWs, and the the 1979 hostages in Iran were all given one.