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TIL that up to 1921, the winners of the previous year's Championship at Wimbledon were automatically granted byes into the final round. This led to many winners retaining their titles in successive years, as they were able to rest while their opponent competed from the start of the tournament.

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XRnQ TIL: The National Federation of the Blind has a program where Santa will mail braille letters to children who are blind. Parents have until December 16th to request a braille letter from Santa.
neBor TIL that the Brontosaurus was thought to be a mistake, the creature had never existed. The animal was actually an Apatosaurus, a previously discovered dinosaur, and it should have had that name. Now it's been discovered that they actually are two separate animals, and the Brontosaurus exists again.
OAB7 TIL that in 1962 Soviet Senior Officer Vasili Arkhipov convinced his captain not to launch a nuclear torpedo on the US after the submarine they were on was rocked by US depth charges, therefore single handedly stopping nuclear war.
v1LrR TIL that engineers at IBM had to hand weave their memory 14KB in total for both control and redundancy of their flight computer in the SATURN V launch vehicle. Wire shaped inside the mesh represented a bit based on the magnetic field generated by the direction of current flowing through it.
wLGY7 TIL of "Bobst Boy," an NYU student who lived in the basement of the campus library for eight months because he couldn't pay for campus housing. NYU offered him free housing and financial assistance until graduation, and he now has a Ph.D. in folklore from Indiana University.