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TIL about Isaac Woodard, an African-American World War II veteran who was beaten and blinded by police officers in South Carolina hours after being honorably discharged from the United States Army, the sheriff in charge of the attack was acquitted by an all-white jury

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v1xVR TIL of Eilmer of Malmesbury, an 11th century English monk who built a flying machine inspired by the myth of Daedalus. He successfully flew 200 meters off the roof of his abbey before crashing because he forgot to include a tail in the design.
b6Wg4 TIL Melissa McCarthy based her “Bridesmaids” character on The Food Network’s Guy Fieri. She even tried to convince the producers to let her wear short, white, spiky hair- but they denied that request, determining that as a bridge too far for the similarities.
9YoWM TIL city spiders are getting bigger, a study found that when spiders lived in urban areas they increased in size and had larger ovaries: Scientists have found increasing evidence that the selective pressures of city living are driving "physical and biological changes" in urban wildlife
LQ15V TIL there is a famous boiling lake of lava in Antarctica on Ross Island, complete with its own active volcano aka "Mount Erebus".
gMVJ9 TIL Genital Herpes (HSV2) dates back millions of years. Scientists found that early ancestors (Homo Erectus) most likely contracted it from another early hominin (Parathropus Boisei). Probably likely through scavenging ancestral chimp meat.