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TIL that the NYPD at one point employed an official beekeeper

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8aYn8 TIL of Jack Parsons, an American rocket scientist and occultist follower of Aleister Crowley. He was defrauded of his life savings by his friend L. Ron Hubbard, worked for Howard Hughes, homebrewed his own absinthe, and died in a lab explosion a colleague claims while trying to create a homunculus.
0dA1N TIL during WWII, German pilot Walter Nowotny managed to shoot down ten planes in one day twice and five planes in one day 17 times.
D16RV TIL that the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation was within months of completing a several mile section of expressway only to cancel the project. Bridges were built, guardrails installed, and funding dried up. They seeded the right of way to prevent erosion and allowed farm animals to graze.
0wR75 TIL that Martin Luther King Jr. personally convinced Nichelle Nichols not to quit Star Trek, because he felt a black woman playing Lt. Uhuru in an equal role to the rest of the crew would be an important portrayal of the world he wanted to see
KOXvE TIL that the Mythbusters once tested a combination of common materials that made an extremely powerful explosive. They deleted the tapes and swore to never release the information, then contacted DARPA and warned them about the possibility of misuse from the combination.