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TIL that the Soviet Union built their own Space Shuttle in secret. In November of 1988, they revealed and launched The Buran for it’s one and only flight successfully. Unlike the US Space Shuttles, this space craft was fully autonomous, had ejection seats, and was able to carry 30 tons.

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via reddit.com

XQ5R TIL Johnny Cash released a whole album called “Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian” because Cash had been convinced that his ancestry was Cherokee, even by members of the Cherokee tribe. Later he found it he was not Cherokee at all, but Scottish, English and Scots-Irish.
WkLx9 TIL, CBC had a contest to complete the phrase "as Canadian as ____" (by analogy with "as American as apple pie"). The winner: "as Canadian as possible, under the circumstances"
Ypm9G TIL of Khalid bin Mohsen Shaari, once the fattest man on Earth at 610 kg (1,340 lb), he started losing weight in 2013 and by 2017 after only 4 years he had successfully lost 542 kg (1,195 lb) and reached an healthy weight of 68 kg (150 lb), it was the biggest weight loss ever recorded
e04j6 TIL: After Ralph Nader Published "Unsafe at any Speed" in 1965, General Motors kept trying to discredit him, including hiring a prostitute to seduce him, but he turned her away. So they hired detectives to prove he was gay, but they were caught when Nader entered Congress and they tried to follow.
WDnd TIL that whenever al-Qaeda organised games of volleyball, Mohammed Atef and Osama Bin Laden were forced to be on separate teams since they were both tall, and skilled players.