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TIL Louis Zamperini was an olympic athlete, and a bombardier in the US Air Corps. He survived two crash landings, was afloat on a raft for 47 days in the ocean, survived 'Execution Island' in Japan, and was horribly abused in a POW (Prisoner of War) Camp. Louis lived for 97 years, and died in 2014.

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VMgDQ TIL that opponents to the proposed bridge linking Detroit to Canada posted fake eviction notices onto local Detroit houses claiming the land was needed to make way for the new bridge. The main opponent to the bridge was the billionaire who owns the only bridge between Detroit and Canada.
LQewP TIL in 1952, Jimmy Carter led a team of nuclear scientists in disassembling a Canadian nuclear reactor undergoing meltdown. To accomplish this, Carter, alongside other American military personnel, personally lowered himself into the reactor to disassemble it by hand.
x6LJw TIL That In 1996 during an SAS training exercise 21 year old Bear Grylls broke his back after falling from 16,000 feet due to a torn parachute. 2 years later he climbed Mt. Everest becoming the youngest Briton to reach the world's highest peak at the time.
nenrP TIL That in 2017 a conservative estimate of a 100 million sharks were killed by humans, while only 5 humans were killed by unprovoked shark attacks
ybMp TIL that the 442nd Infantry Regiment, composed almost entirely of Japanese-Americans whose families were interned, became the most decorated unit in the history of the US army during World War II.