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TIL in 1987, Mathias Rust, an 18 year old from West Germany with about 50 hours flying experience, illegally flew his light aircraft through Soviet airspace, bypassing their air defense systems, and landed near Red Square in Moscow.

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p8Jn4 TIL about Rachele Gilmore, an understudy in the Metropolitan Opera. With only a couple hours notice, she was told she would be making her debut in Offenbach's "Les Contes Hoffman". That night she hit an A-flat above high C, breaking the record for highest note ever sung at the Met.
oRPdW TIL an African grey parrot named "Nigel" who spoke with a British accent, went missing from his California home. He was returned 4 years later speaking Spanish
Qer6 TIL In 1974, two phone hackers stood on a California beach and from two public phone booths intercepted every incoming call to Santa Barbara, and told the dialers the city had been wiped out in a nuclear explosion, causing a widespread panic.
16JK7 TIL for 50+ years, Australian children in the outback attended school via shortwave radio and sent homework via air mail due to the distance between homes. "Schools of the Air" were many children's first social experience outside their families; its quality equaled or surpassed traditional schools'.
EgyZP TIL in 1948, Paul Hermann Müller won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the potent toxic effects on insects by DDT. This pesticide was later on linked to deaths and adverse reproductive effects in both animals and humans.