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TIL that a cave diver who let go of the underwater guideline and got lost whilst exploring the Sterkfontein Caves, a vast complex of passages and pools in South Africa, lived for three weeks in the pitch dark before dying of starvation.

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QNj5a TIL about Andarín Carvajal, a Cuban mailman that ran in the 1904 Olympic Marathon. He arrived at the race dressed in street clothes and during the race he stopped to chat with spectators, snatched some peaches from a spectator's car, ate some rotten apples, took a nap and still finished 4th
gla9 TIL while shooting “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly,” Eli Wallach mistakenly drank acid left next to his drink, was accidentally hanged by a faulty stunt rope, nearly decapitated by a train passing overhead, and left on a horse with his hands tied behind his back when it panicked and ran away.
5VLY8 TIL Thomas Jefferson initially thought black people were mentally inferior, but when black mathematician Benjamin Bannecker showed Jefferson his almanac with astronomical calculations, Jefferson praised Bannecker, treating him as an equal
9YPWX TIL scientists at Brown University are developing a robot cat that may one day help cure loneliness among senior citizens. It doesn't need food, exercise, or a litter box, but it can purr on demand and remind them when it's time to take their meds
5YJJp TIL that a group of embittered singles reserved all the odd-numbered seats at a cinema's primetime screening on Valentine's Day so that couples would be forced to sit apart