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TIL that there was a real-life soldier named Timothy Upham (a la Saving Private Ryan) who served during the War of 1812 and led his regiment to rescue a General Miller

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9OWr TIL a valley settlement in Norway that lives in shadow for nearly half of every year has installed giant mirrors on an adjacent mountain to redirect sunlight into the town’s square, all based on a plan that was thought up 100 years ago.
OwW1 TIL the first scientist to see penguins engage in gay sex and necrophilia was so disturbed he tried to obscure his findings
W7JLo TIL that Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman in Space, was so inspired by Nichelle Nichols' portrayal of Lieutenant Uhura on Stark Trek that she began every shift of her 1992 Shuttle mission by radioing "Hailing Frequencies Open" as a tribute to the actress and her character.
PYYdw TIL that the Skylab Mutiny was the first and only organized labor protest to happen in space
XEAEj TIL that we originally discovered how digestion work because a man named Alexis St. Martin developed a fistula in his stomach after a gunshot wound. The physician placed bits of food on a spoon and inserted them into the mans stomach through the fistula in order to observe the process of digestion.