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TIL that the original record holders for the 1 mile run were all from the United Kingdom, from 1855 on. UK would hold the record for over 50 years, until it was finally broken by American John Paul Jones.

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4XYwb TIL of "Millionaire Secretaries", those who started with early fledgling internet companies and were usually given stock options in lieu of higher salaries, often leading to riches after IPOs. Dozens of companies boasted such secretaries in the late 1990s.
NjeN TIL squirrels do not use sense of smell to find the hundreds of locations where they stored nuts for winters, instead they rely on spatial memory to remember location of each nut. A feat possible because of significantly larger hippocampus in rodent species.
0wGw5 TIL to deflect flight noises from the Amsterdam Airport, an 80-acre park in the shape of perfectly aligned furrows with high ridges in between (inspired by old farming techniques and Chladni patterns), was built. Finished in October 2013, the park cut the noise level in half almost immediately.
wLQ71 TIL The shaggy coat of sloths are host to symbiotic green algae which camouflages the sloth in trees and provides it nutrients. The green color of the algae makes sloths the only green mammal.
9YPj7 TIL when the Northridge Earthquake caused a massive power outage in L.A. in 1994, panicked residents called 911 to express alarm about a strange ethereal light overhead; they were seeing the Milky Way Galaxy for the first time.