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TIL In 2015 a district in Iceland repealed a 400-year-old decree to kill any Basque caught in the area on sight. The edict was issued in 1615 after a storm destroyed 3 Basque whaling vessels on an expedition in Iceland. The crew resorted to robbery that eventually led to the Slaying of the Spaniards

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wopXY TIL about the discovery of IR and UV light: in 1800, William Herschel discovered that in prismed sunlight the invisible area just beyond red light heats up; In 1801, Johann Wilhelm Ritter searched for "cooling rays" on the other end of the spectrum but instead found it induces a chemical reaction
NXYRM TIL Pakistan accidentally took down Youtube for the entire globe in 2008 in an attempt to block it
W7J8A TIL the fins on the Apollo rockets existed only to provide an additional moment of stable flight so a crew member could reach an abort handle. The fins did not provide stability during normal operational flight.
X0LVP TIL that vitamin D deficiency worsens respiratory tract infections. That's one of the reasons why in summer there are fewer cases of flu than in winter.
xl70 TIL many motorcycles in Brazil have a long antenna like rod on the front of their bike to catch kite lines that have glass attached to them.