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TIL In 1987, a 19-year old West German named Matthias Rust landed a small plane in Red Square in Moscow. With a combination of luck and human error, he flew over 500 miles from Helsinki, evading the largest air defense system in the world. He told Soviet authorities he was on a peace mission.

Read more amp.theguardian.com

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OGee7 TIL Luke Skywalker’s surname was originally “Starkiller” when Star Wars began filming. Hamill used this name in one scene but his mouth was obscured by a stormtrooper helmet and it was later dubbed over. Lucas changed the name because of “unpleasant connotations” with Charles Manson.
jNOQp TIL background singers in the Beatles' All You Need Is Love include Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Marianne Faithfull, Keith Moon, Graham Nash and Eric Clapton.
l75Z1 TIL that Bruce Willis has a music album with a song that made it to #5 on the Billboard Hot 100, “Respect Yourself”.
9Y9mX TIL in 1928, the founder of Juilliard overheard an audition of someone improvising on a Rachmaninoff classic. Appalled, he went to confront the blasphemer, but found an 8yo Black girl (Hazel Scott), whose hands were too small to hit all the right keys. She was deemed a prodigy & accepted immediately
kJLxg TIL that much of the sound you hear on sports on TV is actually fake and that for example the sounds you hear in horse racing TV coverage is really sampled from a slowed-down buffalo charge.