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TIL: Frank Buckles, the last surviving U.S. WW I veteran, died in 2011. He was 110. At 16, he lied about his age and enlisted in 1917. Later, when WW II began, he was working for a company in Manilla. Japan invaded the Philippines in 1941 and Buckles was captured and imprisoned for over 3 years.

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woL1P TIL that during the Vietnam war, soldiers built "gun trucks" on their own to defend supply convoys. These 5-ton behemoths were heavily armored, DEADLY (.50 cal machine guns and mini guns!) and even had names like Brutus, Eve of Destruction, King Kong, Ace of Spades, and The Untouchable.
b6ER9 TIL about Pascal Payet who escaped prison 3 times. On Oct 12, 2001 his friends collected him from a roof with a hijacked copter. In 2003 he returned via helicopter to help 3 more prisoners escape. After being captured again, he escaped two more times, both via helicopter.
0wPZp TIL the HIV epidemic was ignored as a 'gay disease' in the USA until a handful of straight people with the disease received national attention. One of them, a kid named Ryan White, refused the label of "innocent victim" as he worried it implied that gay HIV patients were somehow "guilty."
NXvr8 TIL vodka can be made from whey- a dairy byproduct
xB1D TIL that an asystole (flat line on a heart monitor) is not a shockable rhythm because there is no electrical activity in the heart for a cardiovert to work with. So every time you see a doctor/nurse/medic shock a flatline in the movies, it’s all for dramatic affect, not realism.