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TIL During WWII they developed an ultra long range fighter to escort bomber raids in the Pacific…by joining two heavily modified P-51 Mustangs with one single wing. It still holds the record for longest flight of a piston powered fighter, after flying more than 5000 miles from Hawaii to New York

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oBXpE TIL The U.S. navy has the world's only open ocean research platform that is able to tilt 90 degrees upright allowing research to be performed that no other water vessel is capable of performing due to its extreme stability while upright.
QJ7xL TIL that not only were some WW2 PoW’s brought back to the US, any that were unclaimed after they died were buried at the base where they died. As a result, there are two Nazi soldiers buried at Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, and their headstones have swastikas on them.
GYOg7 TIL Dracula was translated into Icelandic in 1901. No-one noticed for 100 years that the writer essentially wrote a fanfic of the story instead of a direct translation. It features new characters, more eroticism, and changed some of Dracula's powers.
8jDa TIL people with red hair are more sensitive to thermal pain, are less sensitive to electrically induced pain, and require larger amounts of anesthetics than people without red hair due to a mutation in their melanocortin 1 receptor.
epRaD TIL 46 U.S. states allow you to use any name you want whenever you want as long as there is no fraud intended. Your consistent use of a preferred name is expected to build up unofficial records showing it. Changing your name through a court is only needed to force institutions to recognize a change.