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TIL Of Orion P. Howe, a 14-year old drummer boy who received the Medal of Honor during the Civil War for volunteering to supply ammunition under heavy fire. He experienced 14 battles, and after the war he joined the Naval Academy because he was still too young for West Point.

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ykeX TIL that there were two twins named Jennifer and June who only spoke to eachother in a secret language, isolated themselves from the outside world, tried to kill eachother and wound up in a mental hospital and decided together that one of them must die for the other to live a normal life.
VeYZ TIL that the Honeybee is probably the smartest insect species existing, their unusual and impressive skill set include: “Advanced symbolic communication, language, facial recognition, number use, observation and mimicry, understanding of rules, and high-level problem-solving.”
LkAd9 TIL In the 1960s Soviet Russia trained an all-female space squad in absolute secrecy. One of these cosmonauts — Valentina Tereshkova — became the first woman in space. But the existence of the female program was classified. Moscow shut the space squad down, and hid its existence for decades.
D1ZZJ TIL that in 2015, a museum in Arkansas paid $7.7 million for a conceptual artwork by the late Felix Gonzalez-Torres. It consists of 50 pounds of candy that museum visitors can eat; the price includes the idea only, as the candy needs to be continually replenished.
QJyx6 TIL the dodo bird was not unintelligent but simply evolved docile behavior in response to a lack of predator on its native island of Mauritius. Humans took advantage of this behavior, haunted it to extinction, and then made it a universally recognized symbol of unintelligence.