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166

TIL that Apollo Robbins, a pickpocket magician, struck up a conversation with Jimmy Carter and Secret Service agents. Within a few minutes he emptied the agents’ pockets of everything except their guns.

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woLmM TIL about the tragic launching of the HMS Albion in 1898, the first disaster caught on film. 38 people drowned by a bow wave caused by the launch.
mxYao TIL that some species of bamboo flower only once in decades, and do so simultaneously across the entire planet, regardless of location or climate
ZEp TIL that despite rising US government spending on the Drug War, opiate production has increased by 380%, Heroin has gotten cheaper and more potent, Crystal Meth and Oxycodone abuse has exploded, and the HIV pandemic has accelerated in underground environments like prison
X046j TIL that in Ancient Greece, when Cimon was given a sentence of 'starvation till death', his daughter, Pero, kept him alive by breastfeeding her own father
nxY TIL that HeLa, the oldest human cell line used in scientific research, is derived from cervical cancer cells of a patient in 1951 and is so self-persistent that it is considered by some to be its own species.