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TIL that in the 1880s, the Cape Town-Port Elizabeth railway service formally employed a baboon as an assistant railway signalman for 9 years. He was paid 20 cents per day and half a bottle of beer per week.

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MJoW TIL more than 300 people died in a supermarket fire because the owners shut the doors in order to prevent people from fleeing with merchandise without paying for it.
p8Pd8 TIL that Johnny Cash had a unique ability for deciphering Morse code and was given top security clearance in the Air Force during the Cold War, intercepting Soviet messages
w6QM TIL you would have to smoke 680kg of marijuana in 15 minutes to die from an overdose
knj7 TIL that the “homeless man with a golden voice”, Ted Williams, is now homeless again and “owns nothing.”
mxZBE TIL there is an island called Disappointment Island. It's uninhabited, but home to over 65,000 pairs of white-capped albatross. In 1868, a steel tanker crashed there and 68 people died, while the remaining 15 waited 18 months to be rescued. In 1907, another ship crashed there and 12 men drowned.