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TIL the world's oldest chewing gum is 9,000 years old

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N71wE TIL Maria Sharapova & her father arrived in Florida from Nyagan, Russia with only $700. Sharapova's father worked low-paying jobs to save up enough money to send her to IMG Academy sports school with a tuition of $35K per year. Today, Sharapova has earned $285 million according to Forbes.
9YAE7 TIL that the Soviet gold medalist Elena Mukhina was forced back to practice with an unhealed broken leg, which didn't give her enough power to do a flip and broke her neck on the mat making her quadriplegic for life in 1980. After the accident she said "Thank God I don't have to go to the Olympics".
nexNb TIL all wild Venus Flytraps live within a 75-mile radius of Wilmington, North Carolina.
16G0r TIL of Operation Pig Bristle. An Australian military operation conducted in 1946 during the Chinese Civil War, the goal of which was to obtain paint brushes in response to a national shortage of brushes used in home construction.
wQ6M TIL the Ibrahim Prize, an annual award given to former African heads of states who have advanced democracy and peacefully transitioned power gifts $5,000,000 plus and additional $200,000 a year after that. It has only been awarded three times since 2008.