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TIL that in 2011, Comcast asked its staff to vote on The Consumerist’s “Worst Company in America” poll so they wouldn’t “win”. The Consumerist noticed the traffic from teamcomcast.com and asked them to not “game the system”

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via reddit.com

pgge TIL that Koko the gorilla, who uses ASL to communicate, met and developed a liking to Robin Williams in 2001; in 2014 Koko learned of his death and apparently mourned for him with shows of sadness and melancholy.
9wLwX TIL in 1973 a British couple survived 117 days lost at sea on an inflatable raft after their boat sank when it was struck by a whale. They survived by "almost continually" bailing water out of their raft, while collecting rainwater & killing turtles, birds and fish with their bare hands for food.
rRrXx TIL that perhaps the biggest reason Europeans had such an easy time settling the Americas was that they carried diseases such as smallpox, influenza, and measles. These were novel to the natives and eventually reduced their populations by as much as 90%, making conquest easier for the Europeans.
wodb8 TIL that the creator of Kwanzaa kidnapped and tortured 2 black women by whipping them with an electrical cord, placing a hot soldering iron in their mouths, and putting one of their toes in a vise.
Y7gAd TIL of UK conservative MP Stephen Milligan who died in 1994 of auto-erotic asphyxiation. Milligan’s body was found naked wearing only stockings and suspenders, with an orange in his mouth.