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TIL of the corn field bomber. A fighter jet that landed itself on a cornfield after the pilot ejected from it following an unrecoverable spin. His act of ejection changed the center of gravity of the plane allowing it recover. It went back into service after minor repair work.

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vPyWB TIL Since 1986, Playboy magazine has sponsored the College Fiction Contest. Playboy’s editors read thousands of entries and chose one undergraduate or graduate student’s story for inclusion in the October issue
0ww1j TIL that Roman concrete, subject to marine corrosion, has stood for over 2000 years, while modern cement can break down in as few as 50 years. The concrete the Romans used contained volcanic ash and got stronger over time: the ash was slowly replaced with Al-tobermorite, a rare hydrothermal mineral.
e06v6 TIL in 1862 British merchant Charles Lennox Richardson was killed for getting too close to a Japanese feudal lord. His last words to his travel companions were: "I know how to deal with these people."
yQZvJ TIL the production of Apocalypse Now had actual dead bodies on set, from someone who supplied bodies to medical schools for autopsies. It turned out he was a grave robber.
YgQv TIL studies show that when traditional intersections were replaced with modern roundabouts in the USA, there was a 37% reduction in overall collisions, 75% reduction in injury collisions, 90% reduction in fatality collisions, and 40% reduction in pedestrian collisions.