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TIL the pages of what became Catcher in the Rye were carried by author J.D. Salinger as he stormed the beach at Normandy on D-Day, through the streets of Paris, and into liberated concentration camps. The story was shaped by his experiences.

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PYeXn TIL Nietzsche criticised antisemitism and German nationalism, believing in his final years he was "a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad blood, certainly not German". He claimed he and Germany were great thanks to "Polish blood in their veins" and wanted "all antisemites shot"
awO7J TIL in 1920 The New York Times ridiculed the notion of rockets in space, calling it absurd, and criticized rocket scientist Robert H. Goddard as being less educated than a high school student. They issued a retraction in 1969 just days before Neil Armstrong stepped onto the moon.
dBpj TIL the hoverboard was invented for real in April 2016. Powered by six compact jet engines totaling 1000 HP (equivalent to four automobile engines), and stabilized with Segway-like algorithmic balancing, it has a flight time of 10 minutes using a camelbak filled with jet fuel.
LkAd9 TIL In the 1960s Soviet Russia trained an all-female space squad in absolute secrecy. One of these cosmonauts — Valentina Tereshkova — became the first woman in space. But the existence of the female program was classified. Moscow shut the space squad down, and hid its existence for decades.
5YBjr TIL of a legend of Bodhidharma a Monk who fell asleep wall gazing, to stop it happening again he cut off his eyelids. When his eyelids hit the ground they became the first tea plants. This is apparently why the character for eyelids and tea are the same in Japanese.