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TIL in 1942, 25 US marines landed on Japanese territory to survey an airfield. After being surrounded by the Japanese, they held a defensive perimeter for 9 hours before being overrun. Eventually, the only surviving marine swam through 4 miles of shark-infested waters to return to Allied lines.

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XYyj TIL: in 1987, a high school boy triangulated where fantasy author Piers Anthony lived using fictional maps from his novels, ran away from home to live with him & his family, and was welcomed into PA’s home for the day, spent the night there, and PA listened to him for ~4 hours and gave him advice.
B05L TIL there is a “Zip Bomb” called 42.zip that when downloaded is only 42 Kilobytes, but actually contains 4,500,000 Gigabytes uncompressed. The file crashes computers when Anti-Virus software comes across it during a routine scan and tries to open the entire file, using up all the computer’s memory.
d8nB TIL that ‘THUGLIFE’ is an acronym and code of ethics that was designed by Tupac to help contain violence in gang culture.
R7N5Q TIL that only 14.5% of American men are 6 feet tall or taller. About 3% are taller than 6 feet 2 inches. Interestingly however, 58% of CEOs in the U.S. are over 6 feet.
b6m4p TIL there’s a dinosaur named Qantassaurus, named in honour of the Australian airline Qantas. This was after Qantas shipped the Great Russian Dinosaurs Exhibit, the largest ever travelling dinosaur exhibit, across the world in the 1990s.