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TIL in 1910 a group of students from Cambridge darkened their skin, donned turbans, and presented themselves to the British Royal Navy as ambassadors from Abyssinia. They conducted an inspection of the fleet, bestowed honors upon British officers, and spoke in a Latin/Greek gibberish.

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Bg60D TIL Tu Youyou won Nobel Prize in Medicine by discovering a cure for Malaria in ancient Chinese Daoist Medical texts
oOO7 TIL that George Washington, Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight D. Eisenhower are the only Presidents not to have held a political office when running for President of the United States
J0j8 TIL in 1621 the Dutch hired Japanese mercenaries to murder 40 inhabitants of Bandaneira Island, a lucrative source of nutmeg. Of the 12,000-15,000 residents all but 1,000 were killed or forced to leave the island as the Dutch created a nutmeg monopoly.
v1WXK Flying a helicopter on Mars is so damn hard but NASA made it possible. For the first flight, the helicopter took off, climbed to about 10 feet (3 meters) above the ground, hovered in the air briefly, completed a turn, and then landed. It was a major milestone: the very first powered flight in the extremely thin atmosphere of Mars, and, in fact, the first such flight in any world beyond Earth. Being able to fly a helicopter or drone on Mars is very important as they can cover 24 kilometers in an hour. By the way, Curiosity took nine years to travel less than 25 kilometers.
Eygo TIL in WW2 German field marshal Erwin Rommel would often personally pilot a reconnaissance aircraft over the battle to view the situation. Although Rommel did not have a pilot’s license, his skill with machinery made him a competent pilot, and none of the Luftwaffe officers had the nerve to stop him