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TIL William Kamkwamba built a windmill from gum trees, bicycle parts, and scrap finds, to power his family’s farm. Though he didn’t know English, he learned to built the windmill from English books and diagrams. Later, he dug a well and built an irrigation system, which helped grow crops more often.

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0we8R TIL jazz legend Billie Holiday was raised in a brothel by teenage parents, worked as a prostitute alongside her mother, was addicted to heroin her entire life and, weeks before her death at 44, was arrested for heroin possession in her hospital bed.
BrQOd TIL that the temporary deafness we experience when yawning is caused by the activation of muscles in the ear that function to dampen oscillations in the ear caused by loud sounds and by the difference in the pressure between the two sides of the eardrums hindering the its ability to freely vibrate.
6ZPQ TIL that a “get out of jail free card” was a real thing in 1567 England; a lottery to raise money for the navy promised winners “freedom from arrest” for all but the most serious crimes.
enk6 TIL a museum in Boston has not removed empty frames of stolen paintings from the walls after an art theft in 1990. The art stolen is worth 500 million, the largest property theft ever.
rRJ5o TIL in 1923 Illinois officially passed legislation replacing English with 'American' as their official language, making it the only state in the Union where people legally 'speak American'