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TIL Soviet gymnast Elena Mukhina, widely touted as the next great gymnastics star until 1979. Her coach rushed her recovery from an injury and pressured her to perform a dangerous move (the Thomas salto), which caused her to break her neck, leaving her a lifelong quadriplegic. She died at 46 in 2006

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7DAM TIL that US Marines murdered 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians in response to an IED that killed a Marine in Haditha, Iraq. The Marine Corps reported that 15 civilians were killed by the IED, and 8 ‘insurgents’ were killed in response. Evidence showed this report to be false.
gMJQb TIL a fascinating group of people called the "Wandervogel" rebelled against Authoritarianism in germany until the nazis forced them to disband, while borrowing some of their ideas about nationalism and nature
ZplJQ TIL a British communist in New Zealand released 15,000+ invasive fish using his Ford Zephyr he’d converted with fish tanks. He permanently damaged waterways and ecosystems
epajJ TIL John von Neumann was the first to use the term "singularity" to refer to a hypothetical point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable consequences for human civilization. Many academics dispute the plausability of a singularity.
WkyaL TIL in 1935, a con man was arrested for selling his victims a "currency copier", purportedly capable of reproducing $100 bills. The day before his trial, he fashioned sheets into a rope and slipped out the window, pretending to be a window washer as he shimmied down the building.