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TIL that when preparing for the role of Gny. Sgt. Hartman in “Full Metal Jacket”, R. Lee Ermey wrote roughly 150 pages of insults

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rRWgx TIL of William Kamkwamba, who taught himself to build windmills from library books. He built his first windmill, at age 15, out of junk from the scrap yard and brought power to his Malawian village. Later on he built another windmill to power water pumps to irrigate fields.
D4wD TIL Freddie Mercury collected Koi carp, was a loyal godfather and rang his cats when he was away from home. Ten days before he died, Freddie said to his manager: “You can do whatever you like with my image, my music, remix it, re-release it, whatever. Just never make me boring”.
4kKNJ TIL when Amtrak launched its high-speed Acela line in 2000, only about 37 percent of people traveling between New York and Washington made the trip but it grew to 83 percent by 2021
X0JEE TIL flies can walk upside down, see in all directions, and taste with their feet. They also have a complex social life and communicate with each other through sounds and smells.
l78r1 TIL The Assyrians had basic lens technology. One of their creations, the Nimrud lens, dates to 710 BCE, though its purpose is debated. Lenses could have been used to start fires, as decoration, or astronomy tools (with references to the snakes of saturn being the rings or mythology)