› added 11 months ago

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TIL Olympic athletes who finish in the top eight in an event are awarded an Olympic diploma

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Y74yr TIL that the highest earning Blu-Ray in US history is The Lord of the Rings - The Motion Picture Trilogy, earning $321,910,973 since release
EgVg7 TIL the second Rashidun caliph, Umar ibn al-Khattab, a senior companion and father-in-law of the prophet Muhammad, was assassinated by a Persian slave in 644 who stabbed him with a double-bladed dagger, apparently due to Umar's refusal to lift a daily tax imposed on the slave by his slave master.
ZRrG TIL that in 1967 Vladimir Komarov became the first to die during a space mission. Reportedly he knew the mission would fail but went up anyway to save anyone else from dying. A final recording exists where he curses his commanders for ignoring his warnings as he burns up in re-entry
woMyJ TIL that hymens don't necessarily break with losing virginity, but stretch most of the time.
0wNvp TIL of Carl McCunn, a wildlife photographer who arranged to be flown out to remote Alaskan wilderness but forgot to schedule when he'd be picked up. He wrote of a plane spotting him stranded, in his excitement he accidentally gave the pilot an "All is well" signal, his diary was found with his body