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TIL The Papal election of 1268-71 was the longest in history. It took so long that the cardinals were locked in, their rations were reduced to bread and water, the roof of their hall was removed, and 3 died of old age. The new Pope changed the rules to stop it from repeating, making the Conclave.

a1oA TIL Winston Churchill smoked 8-10 cigars everyday. Legend has it that when meeting with foreign heads of state, Churchill would insert a straightened paper clip into his cigar to keep the ash from falling and unnerve the other man with the distractingly long ash.
PYooV TIL of Diana Trujillo - who despite being a 17 year old immigrant arriving to America with no English skills and only $300 dollars in her pocket - was able to work her way from housekeeper to becoming an aerospace engineer at NASA who helped create the robotic arm for Mars rover Perseverance.
7r8lb TIL of the Paradox of the Court.Protagoras taught Euathlus who agreed to pay him after his first victory.He did not practise law and Protagoras decided to sue him for the money, arguing that should still be paid even if he fails because Euathlus would have won his first case
yQBBM TIL about history's most expensive "hyphen" when a NASA programmer missed out a single hyphen whilst transcribing a mathematical formula for the guidance system which caused an entire NASA rocket launch to be aborted and the rocket destroyed.
Wk7D8 TIL Denzel Washington has been in over 50 films throughout a career spanning three decades, but next year's The Equalizer 2 will be his first sequel