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TIL Doris Miller joined the Navy as a mess assistant, one option for a black man. During the Pearl Harbor attack he saved several lives and successfully manned an anti-aircraft gun with no training, until the ship started to sink. He was killed in 1943. An aircraft carrier is named in his honor.

Read more dorismillermemorial.org

via reddit.com

loYrN TIL that George Orwell fought in the spanish civil war and was shot in the neck. There is now a square in Barcelona named after him called 'Plaça de George Orwell'. Ironically, the square was once one of the most heavily surveillanced places in Spain.
GOo4 TIL that insurance companies are themselves insured against big payouts from unforseeable disasters, and that this is called ‘reinsurance’.
yVyXa TIL of ‘Project Pigeon’, a WW2 era US funded attempt to train pigeons to guide bombs to their targets. The pigeons were put inside of the bombs and acted as pilots, repeatedly pecking the target displayed through a lens to keep the bomb on course to the target.
9Y59D TIL that a NASA intern unknowingly purchased original footage from the Apollo 11 voyage at a government auction in 1976 for $217.77. He found out over 30 years later and sold them for $1.82m at Sotheby’s.
rA5e TIL The aerodynamics (downforce) of an F1 car is so powerful it could drive on an inverted road (upside-down) if it was going only 170kmh or 105mph!