› added 9 years ago

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TIL In 2004 a 13yo girl was walking to school but was shot and wounded at a distance by IDF soldiers. As she cowered, wounded behind a rock an Israeli captain went up to her and emptied 17 bullets from his rifle into her at point blank range. The captain was exonerated and later promoted to a Major.

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4k0e6 TIL that the first recorded attempt at flight was made by a monk named Eilmer of Malmesbury in 1010. Using wings attached to his arms, he jumped from a tower and flew for a short distance before crashing. This experiment predates the Wright brothers by nearly 900 years.
yY9M TIL that humanity’s first flight was shorter than the wing span of a Boeing 747
nJWG TIL that Jews account for 20% of all Nobel Prize laureates, despite being only 0.2% of the world’s population.
PYgpJ TIL that Leonardo da Vinci would buy animals at the market just to set them free, in the name of animal rights.
BMMK TIL Stephen Hawking has survived for over 50 years after being diagnosed with a disease that only 4% of people survive 10 years with.