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TIL Apollo astronauts would breathe pure oxygen for several hours before flights in order to avoid getting the bends when the cabin pressure was lowered after liftoff.

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vP8B4 TIL the first global attempt to boycott a modern Olympics was in 1936 when they were being hosted in far right Nazi-controlled Germany. Anti-fascist people in Barcelona were set to host an alternative called "Olimpíada Popular" but it was cancelled due to a far right power grab in Spain at that time
6Oyl TIL There was an abandoned Russian Cruise ship that refused to die, was left to float around the oceans, and may have sunk in 2013, but nobody knows for sure.
PYBaG TIL that Judith Viorst (author of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day) wrote a poem about her parents' deaths when she was seven. Both her parents were still alive at the time, and were not amused.
grXPA TIL Many haunted houses have been investigated and found to contain high levels of carbon monoxide or other poisons, which can cause hallucinations. The carbon monoxide theory explains why haunted houses are mostly older houses, which are more likely to contain aging and defective appliances.
E7pw TIL in 1770 a man invented a machine that could play a strong game of chess against a human opponent. The “android” that played the game was nicknamed The Turk (as was the machine itself). It wasn’t until 1857 that it was revealed to be a hoax (a chess master was hiding in the machine).