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TIL of Orestes Lorenzo, a Cuban fighter pilot who defected to the US. He flew to Florida in a MiG-23 and requested his family join him, when his family were banned from leaving Cuba he raised money to buy a plane. He then flew back to Cuba, landed on a highway an bought his family back himself.

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5YnP TIL that the reason the Toronto Maple Leafs are not called the Maple “Leaves” is that the name was chosen in honour of the Maple Leaf Regiment from World War I. As the regiment is a proper noun, its plural is Maple Leafs (not Maple Leaves).
5YMgk TIL Isaac Singer, of Singer Sewing Machine fame, had more than two-dozen children with a variety of wives and mistresses. Several relationships overlapped and a few of his children were born in the same year.
QJ4yL TIL that Chris Langan, "the smartest man in America" with an IQ reportedly between 190 and 210, began weight training at the age of twelve after repeatedly being physically beaten by his stepfather and stopped the abuse himself at the age of fourteen by throwing him out of the house.
9n8D TIL in 1908 Teddy Roosevelt approached the Smithsonian Institution with an idea. He would collect specimens from Africa to have sent back for display and would be of unique value. The “unique value” he was referring to was the chance to acquire specimens shot by the president of the United States.
pAob TIL: The word algorithm comes from the Latinized translation of the name of a persian mathematician Muḥammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī, who presented the first systematic solution of linear and quadratic equations.