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TIL Snooty, the world’s oldest captive manatee, has lived at the South Florida Aquarium almost all his life. On his birthday, a cake of fruit and vegetables is made for him while the visitors sing him Happy Birthday.

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Merb TIL for centuries there was a class of slave-soldier called the Mamluks. They were so powerful, free men would sell themselves into slavery hoping to join them. Also, they were wiped out in a purge not unlike the Jedi.
X0rEj TIL of Amtor. Edgar Rice Burroughs (author of Tarzan) also wrote a 5-book series set on Venus, which was imagined as a water world. The main character, a human astronaut, meets princesses, becomes a pirate twice in the series, and is crowned a prince after the overthrow of a kingdom.
AG8d TIL George Zimmer, the owner and founder of The Men’s Wearhouse, does not background check his employees. “I don’t trust the U.S. justice system to get it right,” says Zimmer, who is himself a recovering alcoholic; “I’d rather make my own decisions, and I believe in giving people a second chance.”
R5m48 TIL that Celtic languages were once widely spoken across much of western and central Europe. These languages/cultures slowly succumbed to Roman and Germanic expansion, and today Celtic languages are reduced to Ireland, the UK, and Northwest France.
R5knj TIL that Bosnia and Herzegovina only uses the letters A, E, O, J, K, M and T in its vehicle registration plates because it uses both the Latin and Cyrillic alphabets, and these letters are written and pronounced identically in both. The same plates can therefore be used in every region.