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TIL a Belgian businessman was instrumental to the Manhattan Project's success. Realizing uranium's importance, he shipped 1,200 tons of it to Staten Island. When Lieutenant Colonel Nichols contacted him, he simply responded: "You can have the ore now. It is in New York. I was waiting for your visit"

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jN5XE TIL The world’s first fully-trained paramedics was made up of exclusively young Black men in the 1960s
LkANr TIL about survivorship bias and its application in the military. A statistician used the survivorship bias in his calculations when considering how to minimize bomber losses to enemy fire. The military wanted to reinforce the areas where the bomber was shot up instead of looking where it wasn't hit.
0dpEy TIL about Ken Warby, the fastest man on water. He set the speed record in his homemade, wood boat in 1978 at 317.6mph (551.1 km/h), a record that still stands today.
mb7M TIL the first handheld rail gun was made in 2015
kO89B TIL On April 30, 1961, Dr. Leonid Rogozov removed his own infected appendix at the Soviet Novolazarevskaja Research Station in Antarctica, as he was the only doctor there. The operation lasted one hour and 45 minutes and it was a success.