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TIL China began efforts to its first manned space flight in 1968 and accomplished the goal in 2003 with Shenzhou 5. The design of Shenzhou resembles the Russian Soyuz spacecraft. The Chinese spacecraft is, however, larger than Soyuz and is an all new construction

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wYJ8 TIL That as a peasant of the feudal age you had no right to mill you own grain. Millwrights would come to your house and break your milling equipment to enforce their monopoly. This is the reason many quern-stones are found in broken condition.
Wk0B8 TIL That in 1941, Rudolf Hess, the "Deputy Fuhrer" of Nazi Germany, seemingly without Hitler's knowledge, flew to Scotland in a deranged plan to meet a Scottish baron he knew, and through him meet with Churchill to persuade him to stop the war. He was found by a farmer and immediately imprisoned.
9dvM TIL a German citizen was mistakenly abducted by the Macedonian police and handed-over to the CIA, who then held him in a black site and interrogated, beat, strip-searched, and sodomized him. When the victim later tried to sue, the case was dismissed as the US government claimed state secrets.
8GZZ TIL of an Internet Mystery involving a Cicada which has never been solved.
NoYQ TIL that horror/supernatural writer Anne Rice’s birth name was Howard Allen Frances O'Brien. Her parents changed it at age six, it after she introduced herself in school to a nun as “Anne,” a name she found pretty, rather than give her birth name out of embarrassment.