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TIL the 2nd fastest manmade object is a manhole cover that was shot to space by a nuclear bomb at 41mi/s (147,600mph) in 1957

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pDNQ TIL in the 90’s Rick James and his girlfriend were charged for kidnapping a music executive and beating her for 20 hours. This happened while they were out on bail for holding a different woman hostage for 20 days, sexually assaulting her and burning her with a crack pipe.
Yp417 TIL the original word for a Bear was 'Arkto' but our proto-Germanic ancestors started referring to them as 'bear' which meant 'brown one.' This practice came from a superstitious fear that speaking the predators name would summon him. This is one of the earliest examples of a euphemism.
5Y1JB TIL that, while there have been reports of python snakes killing people since the early 20th century, the first documented case of a python eating a human happened in 2017.
WkQb4 TIL that Stanisław Jerzy Lec, Polish poet, in 1943 tried to escape from a Nazi work camp in Tarnopol (now Ukraine), for which he was sentenced to death. While digging his own grave, he killed a guard with a shovel and successfully escaped disguised as a Wermacht soldier.
0OPA TIL that the gigantic, hairy “Goliath birdeater” tarantula spider is entirely harmless and passive toward humans and their bite would hardly compare to the sting of a wasp.