› added 10 years ago

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TIL Adolph Malan, a South African flying ace, led the No. 74 Squadron RAF during the battle of Briton, known for sending bomber pilots home with dead crews as a warning to other German crews. When he returned home, he considered apartheid a Nazi ideal, and got involved in anti-apartheid movements.

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EgZPX TIL of Charles Valadier, a dentist who used his Rolls Royce 'Silver Ghost' as a mobile dental surgery unit to treat facial injuries of wounded soldiers on the front during World War 1. Using the Rolls-Royce on the frontline, Valadier became a pioneer of maxillofacial reconstructive surgery.
k4aE TIL that Lon Perry used to apologize while restraining people during his robberies and would return family photos from their wallets. He once called 911 for a victim who had a heart attack during a robbery. In 1991, Lon turned himself in to prevent another man from being accused for his crimes.
5Yxo8 TIL that the concept of zombies goes all the way back to the dawn of written literature. In the Epic of Gilgmesh, Ishtar threatens to, "Raise up the dead and they shall eat the living." Similar ideas appear in the bible.
loE9B TIL that in 1666, the entire English village of Eyam, when contaminated with the bubonic plague, agreed to quarantine itself, essentially sentencing themselves to death, instead of fleeing to other villages. They did it to stop the disease from spreading. Some 260 villagers died.
69Bj8 TIL Vancouver's Stanley Park Hollow Tree Conservation Society voted to save a six-metre-wide dead Hollow Tree stump and paid $200,000 worth of restoration work. The parks board voted to cut down the 700 year old tree, because it was a safety hazard