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TIL In 1967 Michael J. Adams (Maj USAF) flew an X-15 to an altitude above 50 miles and qualified as an astronaut according to the U.S. definition of the boundary of space. Moments later the craft broke apart, killing Adams and destroying the X-15-3. He was the first American space mission fatality.

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L4N0 TIL British reporter Clare Hollingworth broke the news of Hitler invading Poland. British embassy didn’t believe her until she held a telephone out of the window of her room to capture the ongoing sounds of war. Hers was the 1st report the British Foreign Office received about the invasion of Poland
pYyLA TIL that the first documented infringement of the Volstead Act was less than an hour after it came into force, when $100,000 worth of whisky was stolen by armed men.
GYYL7 TIL Humans kill more than 100 million sharks every year, which is about 11,000 per hour. Biologically, sharks simply can't keep up with the current rate of exploitation and demand.
78emO TIL In 2002, lecturers and students from the University of Plymouth MediaLab Arts course used a £2,000 grant from the Arts Council to test the Infinate Monkey Theorem by studying the literary output of real monkeys.
JlrB TIL a man rescued a dying crocodile, looked after it, tried to release the croc into the wild, but the croc kept coming back. The two became ‘best friends’ and for the next 20 years, Chito (man) used to get into the water to SWIM, KISS, HUG, PLAY with ‘Pocho’ the 5-meter, 450kg croc.