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TIL: in 1975, after a skydiving student’s main parachute became entangled with the plane, he deployed his reserve chute. This caused the plane to stall and engines to fail. Everybody on board survived as the plane descended under the reserve chute.

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b9474 TIL I learned of Rodney Alcala, a serial killer who appeared on the TV show "The Dating Game", after he had already killed numerous people. He was said to have an IQ of 160, and interrogated himself on the witness stand during his trial, in Smeagol/Gollum fashion, switching voices and demeanor.
4k4nb TIL that hummingbirds can fly backward because they can manipulate their feathers to change pitch, which affects whether they move up or down, and yaw, which affects whether they move right or left.
j6eEE TIL the U.S. freight rail network moves one-third of all U.S. exports and roughly 40% of long distance freight volume, competing directly with the trucking industry
yVlk8 TIL John Morales, the actor who played the crime-fighting cartoon character McGruff the Crime Dog, was sentenced to 16 years in prison stemming from a 2011 arrest in which police seized 1,000 marijuana plants, 27 weapons – including a grenade launcher – and 9,000 rounds of ammunition from his home
l7Jk1 TIL that the May 31 1984 escape of the notorious Briley Brothers from death row, would have been a lot more violent had convict Wilbert Lee Evans not stopped them from killing prison staff and victimising a nurse they had captured.