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TIL of Armand Gagné, a peasant boy who was adopted by Marie Antoinette. After her carriage almost ran over the 5-year-old, she became so delighted with his appearance that she took him with her. The boy did not want to go and wished to stay with his family but she forcibly adopted him anyway.

6EyPQ TIL that Hughes engineers swung a satellite around the Moon and approached earth from a 'stealthy' direction, "downwards from the Moon rather than up from the ground, the way we typically think of missile launches by aggressor nations."
XE7Q TIL That the man who blew the whistle on alleged widespread phone hacking perpetrated by Murdoch’s “The News of the World” was found dead in his London home. The Prime Minister had ties to Murdoch, and the Scotland Yard investigated the death.
d8ek8 TIL about The Mad Trapper of Canada. He opened fire on policemen, fled 85 miles in -50 degree weather in 3 days, climbed a 7,000 foot mountain during a blizzard, and was finally shot dead by a WWI ace. The only sound he ever made was laughter as he killed a policeman. His identity is still unknown.
7jnx TIL the pirate Hayreddin “Red beard” Barbarossa (1478-1546) was exiled from so many countries that he ended up starting his own country (Regency of Algiers) with the blessing of The Ottoman Empire which became present day Algeria, Tunisia and parts of Morocco.
7m1p TIL epidemiologists studied World of Warcraft’s unintentional “Corrupted Blood” plague as a virtual model of disease spread and populace reaction to deadly pandemic.