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TIL of the Great American Horse Race of 1976 - a 3,500 mile long race with over 100 contenders mainly riding thoroughbred stallions. The winner ended up being Lord Fauntleroy, a mule ridden by a teenager, who beat the second place finisher by nearly 10 hours.

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4Xamw TIL the term military tattoo comes from the early 17th-century Dutch phrase doe den tap toe ("turn off the tap"), a signal sounded by drummers or trumpeters to instruct innkeepers to stop serving beer and for soldiers to return to their barracks
O1b1 TIL in a 2009 TED talk about Malaria, Bill Gates brought a jar of mosquitos onto the stage and released them into the crowd to frighten the audience into considering the dangers of Malaria closer to home.
nWwX9 TIL, Neanderthals and Woolly Mammoths Shared Genetic Traits
epy4D TIL In 2014, a 15-year-old teenager injected himself with mercury, hoping to gain superpowers like the X-Men. He mimicked Wolverine's transformation, but it ended in disaster. He nearly lost his life and realized superpowers are just fiction.
wWbW TIL that octopi, octopuses, and octopodes are all correct plural forms of the word octopus.