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TIL An Ottawa shooter attempted to rob a McDonalds with pointed stick. He wanted to be in jail because he believed it was the only way to overcome his crack cocaine addiction.

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via reddit.com

GAxO5 TIL that in 1875, a whiskey warehouse fire in Dublin led to 13 deaths—not from the flames, but from alcohol poisoning, as people drank the whiskey flowing through the streets.
neA5d TIL A New Bird Species “Big Bird” Has Evolved on Galapagos And Scientists Watched It Happen
Mej48 TIL In the '80s, the drinking age was raised from 18 to 21 nationally because Reagan passed a bill in 1984 that required states to raise their drinking age to 21. They don't have to make it 21 per se, but if they chose to opt-out, they would simply be ineligible for federal highway funding.
16aQP TIL CIA satellites in the 1960s would jettison heat-shielded film canisters with parachutes back to earth, to be retrieved in mid-air by plane
R7J68 TIL: In 2005, because of a programming error, a virtual plague spread through World of Warcraft. The servers had to be shut down because NPCs and players killed off entire in-game cities. Researchers of disease analyzed and studied the event as a model for the spread of plague IRL.