› added 8 years ago

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TIL in the 2009 Philippines floods a teenager named Muelmar Magallanes saved 30 lives. After leaping into the rushing waters to save his family from danger, he repeatedly jumped back in to save others, including a trapped mother and baby, until too tired to fight the current he was swept away.

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Xg0E TIL that in 1950 a church in Beatrice, Nebraska exploded five minutes after choir practice was supposed to start but no one was hurt because every single member of the choir was late for entirely different reasons. And my grandmother was one of them.
Egr7P TIL 12th President Zachary Taylor’s only son served as a Confederate general during the U.S. Civil War
5YO0R TIL in 1976, the team studying a newly-identified virus in Africa didn't want to name it after the village where it was found, so they named it after the closest river they could see on a map, which was the Ebola River.
9YrWB TIL that Sunflowers are used to assist in clean up after a nuclear disaster. They are known as hyperaccumulators because they are capable of absorbing toxic heavy metals from the ground and have been planted at both Chernobyl and Fukushima to aid in soil restoration.
6ELnm TIL that in areas with high Jewish populations, elevators are designed to stop at every floor on Saturdays. This is because the practice of Makeh B'patish, or "completion", is banned on the Sabbath, barring Jews from completing electrical circuits by using switches.