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TIL Poon Lim survived 133 days adrift in the Pacific ocean on a 8’ square wooden raft. When rescued he was told no one had ever survived longer on a raft at sea, he simply replied “I hope no one will ever have to break that record.”

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M7wQB TIL Anne Rice's birth name was Howard Allen. She became 'Anne' on her first day of school, when a nun asked her what her name was. She told the nun 'Anne' because she considered it a pretty name. Her mother, who was with her, let it go without correcting her and then legally changed her name in 1947
v1o7D TIL that in June of last year, a swan living in Manchester, England died of a broken heart when teenagers threw bricks at her nest and killed all but one of her unborn cygnets and drove off her mate due to stress
dDrZB TIL of the Cavalese incident of 1998 that occurred on February 3, 1998, in Cavalese, Italy. A US Marine Corps aircraft was flying at a low altitude when it severed the cable of a ski lift. The cable car plummeted to the ground, resulting in the deaths of all 20 people on board.
loKYB TIL Before he died in 1998, Chinese President Yang Shangkun told his army doctor that the Tiananmen crackdown on June 4 had been the most serious mistake committed by the Communist Party in its history
j6xNn TIL about Alvin “Tex” Johnson, a test pilot for Boeing who barrel rolled the 707 passenger jet prototype in 1955 over Seattle without orders. When asked he simply said: “I’m selling airplanes”.