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TIL a rare 400-year-old shimpaku tree, which was due to be entered in a Japanese beauty competition, was stolen from a roughly 5,000 hectare park run by a fifth generation bonsai master whose family practice dates back to the Edo period (1603-1868)

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nvpB TIL in a 2012 Honduras prison fire inmates broke through wood and zinc ceilings to escape the fire only to find themselves being shot at by guards who feared a jail break. 355 prisoners were killed.
0dbej TIL that from 2021-2024, there were only two commercial aircraft incidents involving fatalities in the United States: the 2022 Mutiny Bay DHC-3 Otter crash (10 fatalities) and 2020 Calabasas helicopter crash (9 fatalities).
VBBP0 TIL that during the recording of the Paul McCartney and Wings album "Back to the Egg", the iconic Abbey Road Studio Two became unavailable. Frustrated at the studio's unavailability, McCartney had an exact replica of Studio Two built in the basement of his company's headquarters in London.
BgEaD TIL about the North Sea Flood of 1953, when a night time storm surge overwhelmed sea defences in the Netherlands, north-west Belgium, and eastern England and Scotland, with a mean flood height of 5.6m/18'4" over sea level, resulting in over 2,000 deaths on land and over 200 at sea
xVKnB TIL that Frederick Douglass's master didn't want his slaves being taught to read, believing that it would foster a desire for freedom. Douglass learned to read anyway, escaped, and became the foremost abolitionist in the country.