› added 3 years ago

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TIL that during the Vietnam War, USAF Major Philip W. Handley achieved the world's only supersonic air-to-air gun kill, when he shot down a North Vietnamese MiG-19 while flying F-4 Phantom and using F-4's 20mm cannon, at 1.2 mach (800 kts).

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X0P4P TIL that the U.S town of Point Roberts, Washington is actually located in Canada
1L54 TIL that Apollo 12 astronaut Alan L Bean accidentally destroyed the mission’s TV camera by pointing it at the sun, left several rolls of exposed film on the moon by mistake, and was hit on the head by a 16mm film camera when the crew splashed down on Earth.
9xdm TIL that in the state of California (and many others), it’s legal for police officers to kill somebody just for resisting the ‘execution of some legal process'—which means you don’t even have to be resisting arrest for the police to kill you in a 'justifiable homicide.’
VMow4 TIL humans and other primates have evolved to have special neurons that can detect snakes faster than flowers.
R5746 TIL that it was common for mistakes to be made during the production of parchment for manuscripts. Tears that developed during this process were often fixed with colorful stitching, and these stitches were sometimes incorporated into illustrations.