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TIL that long before creating Star Trek, 26-year-old Gene Roddenberry was a co-pilot aboard a Pan Am plane that crashed in the Syrian Desert. With several broken ribs, he helped save 22 people and eventually led them to safety.

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e0614 TIL the band DEVO's name comes from the concept of DE-eVOlution; the idea that humanity has begun to regress to a more primitive herd-like mentality and become more dysfunctional.
N7k4e TIL Led Zeppelin songs “Ramble On,” “Misty Mountain Hop,” and “The Battle for Evermore” were all inspired by The Hobbit and/or The Lord of the Rings. Black Sabbath, Rush, Genesis, and many other classic rock bands were also inspired by Tolkien’s works!
N7rbN TIL Helium was first discovered in 1868 on the SUN. Astronomers at the time noticed a certain wavelength in sunlight which could not be produced by any known element at the time. It was thought that the gas was only present on the sun, thus was named after the Greek god Helios.
grA87 TIL that after being killed during John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, the body of Brown's son Watson was severely mutilated and put on display in a nearby medical college by pro-slavery secessionists. Union soldiers burned the college to the ground in 1862.
MDRW TIL that if the entire world’s population stood side by side in a giant square, with each person having 1 square meter of space to stand in, that (not so giant) square would only be 80km (50 miles) in length in each direction, and a Bugatti Veyron could drive around it in 50 minutes.