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TIL A man named Laurence Vonderdell robbed a bank in Dorset, England, with a banana wrapped in an orange plastic bag that he pretended was a gun and escaped with £1,100 worth of £20 notes.

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MeP4V TIL in 1956 Marija Gimbutas postulated the "Kurgan hypothesis" - that the source of Indo-European languages across Eurasia were the Steppe cultures of the Pontic steppe who first domesticated horses and invented the wheel. In recent years, ancient DNA studies seem to have proven her theory correct.
xBab TIL that there is an entirely independent food chain that lives deep in the ocean, that is effectively independent of sunlight, and these life forms are the leading candidates for extra-terrestrial life.
Jxm8 TIL the term “waffle” (meaning blather or to be indecisive) is not based on the food. It actually comes “waff” which is the 17th century version of “woof,” - the implication being the speaker’s words have as much meaning as a dog barking.
d8jYj TIL the most G force a person has survived was in the 2003 Chevy 500 when the car driven by Kenny Bräck made contact with Tomas Scheckter's car. This immediately resulted in Bräck's car impacting the catch fence that would record a peak of 214 g meaning he weighed 30000 lbs for a few seconds.
R5dZ4 TIL Alberta, Canada is the only densely populated area in the world without a rat population, thanks to a Rat Control Program that was established in 1950.