› added 6 years ago

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TIL Walter Jackson Freeman II, creator of the "icepick" lobotomy, performed as many as 4,000 surgeries in 23 states despite the fact that he had no formal surgical training. Up to 40% of Freeman's patients were gay individuals subjected to a lobotomy in order to change their homosexual orientation.

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0le5 TIL Adam Rainer is the only person in recorded history to have been both a dwarf (4 ft 0.25 in at age 18) and a giant (7 ft 8 in at age 51).
P65V TIL During WWII, when he realised his guns had malfunctioned, an RAF pilot prevented a German bomber from bombing Buckingham Palace by cutting the German plane in half with the wing of his Hawker Hurricane.
7EBb TIL that during the filming of “Predator” in 1987 the studio’s insurance company would not agree to insure the production unless a body guard was hired to follow Sonny Landham (Billy) around. The body guard’s sole purpose was not to protect Sonny, but to protect other people from Sonny.
OGma TIL Rick Astley had a hit single called “Giving Up on Love”
9wOwG TIL about a man named John Martin who tried to sail from Alaska to China to visit his wife and son in an 8-foot dinghy, but instead washed up in Russia where he was later held for four months awaiting deportation