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TIL a Florida man was stranded on a sandbar with sharks circling around him. He kept them at bay with a fishing pole for an hour and a half, after which he remembered he had a cell phone and called for help.

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Z8G4D TIL of 'If Day'. In 1942 Winnipeg, Manitoba simulated a Nazi German invasion and occupation of the city. It included a staged firefight, the internment of prominent politicians, the imposition of Nazi rule, and a parade. The event was a fundraiser for the war effort: over $3 million was collected.
jdGX TIL that in 1586 a pregnant widow wrote a letter to her partner, who had died at the age of 30. This was found by archaeologists in South Korea in 1998, intact with the man’s mummified body and a pair of sandals woven from hemp and the woman’s hair.
1a4eO TIL: Disabled children are currently being routinely tortured at the Judge Rottenberg Centre in Massachetts, and it's completely legal.
KOQLE TIL that US soldiers in Vietnam saw 6x more combat than US soldiers in previous wars, because helicopter deliveries drastically cut downtime spent waiting for supplies
oB78o TIL: the huddle in American football was invented by a team of deaf players to hide their sign language from opposing teams