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TIL that Apollo 11 astronauts couldn’t afford insurance. Life insurance for a space mission cost a lot, because the risks were extremely high back then. So instead, the astronauts of Apollo 11 signed hundreds of postal covers that their families could sell in case anything went wrong.

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9Y4P7 TIL of U.S. Secret Service agent Jerry Parr, who saved President Ronald Reagan's life during a 1981 assassination attempt. Parr was inspired to join the Secret Service by the 1939 movie "Code of the Secret Service"... which starred a young Ronald Reagan.
6mDm TIL Tesla motors received a $465m loan in 2009. Despite rampant skepticism, Tesla paid it back in full by May 2013. It was the first car company to do so.
jNnNR TIL JK Rowling attended Exeter University to study French with Greek and German. Her parents hoped that in studying languages, she would enjoy a career as a bilingual secretary. After completing her 3,000 word final essay in French, she graduated with a 2.2
wLPMW TIL Sputnik, the famed Soviet satellite that launched in 1958, wasn’t the first spaceflight. Instead, the Nazi's launched a V-2 rocket to space in 1942, and the first image of Earth taken from space came from a U.S. launched V-2 rocket in 1947.
nWx8B TIL of the Bayside Canadian Railway, a 200-foot-long railroad to nowhere in New Brunswick, Canada. Due to a loophole in the Jones Act, cargo between American ports is permitted to be shipped on foreign-built vessels if at some point it also uses a Canadian railroad.