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TIL of William Kamkwamba, who taught himself to build windmills from library books. He built his first windmill, at age 15, out of junk from the scrap yard and brought power to his Malawian village. Later on he built another windmill to power water pumps to irrigate fields.

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VBLPp TIL that birds have a unidirectional, four-stroke respiration system. They have posterior and anterior air sacs that fill the lungs and receive deoxygenated air during each part of the inhale/exhale cycle. This process is highly efficient as it keeps the lungs constantly full of oxygenated air
1Xp7 TIL that Canada won the last ever Olympic Lacrosse Gold Medal, in 1908, and are therefore still the reigning Champions. In fact, they are the ONLY gold medalists ever in the sport.
nVyG TIL the main religious text of Sikhism, called the Guru Granth Sahib, is written in a Esperanto-like language constructed from main North Indian languages, Persian and Arabic. Its purpose to connect to a broader audience, and also to have an extensive vocabulary for oral poetry.
Llav TIL, during the filming of Charlie’s Angels, Bill Murray stopped, pointed to Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu, and said in order, “I get why you’re here. And you’ve got talent. But what in the hell are you doing here? You can’t act.” Liu then punched him until the crew separated them.
x8Mg TIL distance-running has skyrocketed in popularity 3 times in modern history, each time in the midst of a major crisis: during the Great Depression, in the 1970s during a recession, race riots, assassinations, and Vietnam, and 1 year after 9/11 it became the fastest-growing outdoor sport in the US.