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TIL John "Babbacombe" Lee was an Englishman famous for surviving three attempts to hang him for murder in 1885. It's speculated that this is where the phrase "third time's a charm" comes from.

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0dWKj TIL that before water fountains were used for people to drink water freely in public, people used to drink from something called the "common cup", a publicly shared and very unhygienic cup or ladle-type spoon attached by string.
gr1L TIL that removing the top and bottom sheets of a paper ream can prevent copy machine paper jams.
neKDP TIL there was a successful "real life" demonstration of driverless automobile technology over 60 years ago in Lincoln, Nebraska. Broader implementation stalled due to a lack of interest from other states in funding the necessary infrastructure.
M7048 TIL a Chinese teenager defaced a stone sculpture in ancient Egyptian Luxor Temple with graffiti. An embarrassed Chinese traveller photographed it and shared on Weibo. It took just a day before outraged netizens tracked the teenager down in his hometown forcing his parents to apologize for him.
WkBEL TIL of the Order of Brothelyngham, a mock Catholic order that satirized corrupt medieval clergy by electing a lunatic as abbot and kidnapping local citizens.