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TIL that Bear Grylls was the first person to summit Mt. Everest after breaking a vertebrae. He also was the youngest Brit to summit at 23 in 1997, and flew over the summit with a powered paraglider in 2003.

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d8b6r TIL the Stephen King book, The Tommyknockers, was loosely based on a creature from the folklore of Cornish miners. To some, knockers were malevolent spirits who knocked on supports to cause a cave-in. To others, the knocking a way of warning the miners that a collapse was imminent.
OMe TIL that in 1752 Voltaire wrote a science fiction story about an alien from a planet orbiting the star Sirius who meets another alien from Saturn, and then they both travel to Earth. In 1752.
OGYNe TIL The European 30 Years' War 1618 - 1648 began with Czech nobles throwing two Habsburg governors out of Prague castle window onto a huge dungheap. The corresponding carnage - fought over the issue of religious freedom following the Protestant Reformation - left millions dead.
A1Od TIL that Tuvalu could finally afford the $100,000 it cost to join the United Nations after it received its first quarterly $1 million payment for leasing out the valuable .tv internet domain.
er8b TIL President Grover Cleveland avoided the draft by paying a Polish immigrant to fight in his place during the Civil War.