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TIL the kidnapped British aid worker Linda Norgrove was killed by a grenade thrown by a Navy SEAL during a failed rescue operation. The SEALs did not immediately notify senior officers about throwing the grenade; this breached military law, and a number of sailors were disciplined

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wpy6 TIL in 1996 a model airplane fan was flying a plane at a Dublin park when the controller died and the plane flew off on its own. It flew five miles, ran out of fuel, and glided to a landing… on a runway at Dublin Airport
daxK TIL that lionfish are a prolific invasive species in the Atlantic Ocean and sharks typically don’t recognize them as prey. In an effort to control the lionfish population, a group of conservationists attempted to train reef sharks to prey on them.
oB1GR TIL that Thomas Alva Edison did not invent the light bulb; electric light sources were being experimented since early 1800s and an English Physicist Sir Joseph Swan had a working prototype of electric incandescent light bulb more than a decade earlier than Edison.
Gyr7 TIL that Iceland has the oldest existing parliamentary system in the world. It is over 1000 years old.
5YnG8 TIL that in 1666 the Dutch painter Willem van de Velde, when tasked with portraying a sea battle, manned a ship himself to make live drawings of the ongoing Four Days Battle from as close as possible.