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TIL about YomHaShoah, an Israeli national day of remembrance for the Holocaust. One of the most notable events of the day is the blaring of air raid sirens throughout the country for two minutes, during which all public activity ceases.

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neP9W TIL the first film to use a special effect was a reenactment of the beheading of Mary, Queen of Scots
eppKk TIL in 1972 a traveling circus set up in the village of Uquakwa, IL. Overnight, their elephant was tethered to a tree in the park. Lightning struck and killed the elephant. The panicked Circus owners packed up all of their gear, and scurried out of town, leaving the 6500 lb dead Pachyderm behind.
NG78 TIL as a PhD student, American mathematician George Bernard Dantzig showed up late to a statistics class and mistook two famous unsolved statistics problems as homework. He solved them and turned them in a week later, believing his assignment was overdue.
o6JW TIL that in 2015, a dinosaur with bat-like wing membrane was discovered, becoming the closest thing to a dragon/wyvern currently discovered.
rxWe TIL that in 1874 a satirical article was published claiming that a women was impregnated by a bullet that plunged through the testicle of a soldier. The story persisted as a medical fact as late as 1959