› added 10 years ago

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TIL an American Huey pilot stopped the My Lai massacre and risked his own life to save Vietnamese villagers. Landing his Huey between fleeing villagers and approaching U.S. soldiers, he ordered his door gunners to open fire if the troops tried to stop him or opened fire on them.

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5o9n TIL on this day in 1907 a Mexican railroad brakeman named Jesus Garcia saved the entire town of Nacozari, Sonora by singlehandedly driving a damaged and burning train containing dynamite six kilometers away from the town before it finally exploded, killing him
b9roN TIL 17-yr-old Wolf Cukier found a new planet 3 days into a summer NASA internship. From space telescope data, he detected something blocking starlight, which was the shadow from a planet about 6.9 times larger than Earth. He doesn't get to name the planet, but he got a discount on a NASA jacket.
GYZMG TIL Ben, from Ben & Jerry's ice cream, has no sense of smell and gets his "food enjoyment" from texture. This is why the brand puts chunky ingredients in their ice cream.
JYoaV TIL that Henry Bessemer, the engineer largely credited with the invention of modern steel, also invented or contributed to embossed postage stamps, long sheets of plate glass, military weapons, and a method for extracting sugar from sugar cane. He eventually earned nearly 130 patents
m1a1O TIL that Steve Holland introduced a Mississippi state house bill in 2012 to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America as a criticism of Republican priorities