› added 11 years ago

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TIL in 1994, the pilot of an Aeroflot Airbus A310 allowed his son to sit at the controls during a flight. The boy inadvertently turned off the autopilot controls, sending the plane into hillside and killing all 75 aboard.

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R5pY9 TIL Leon Trotsky was the only notable absentee from Vladimir Lenin's funeral, which attended by tens of thousands despite the freezing, snowy weather in Moscow in late January. His claim that he was given the wrong date for the funeral turned out to be true. Stalin did so, on purpose
YARv TIL that the CIA once owned dummy corporation, “Air America,” that operated as a civilian airline but was used to conduct military operations.
JYm TIL that Prince Harry owns an Olympic racehorse named Usain Colt
yVZdp TIL that Alien was based on a comedy film written by its screenwriter Dan O'Bannon called Dark Star, featuring an alien that was just a painted beach ball with rubber claws attached. He eventually started imagining what Dark Star would look like as a horror film.
9wW9p TIL During Operation Desert Storm an F-15E Strike Eagle shot down an Iraqi Mi-24 attack helicopter with a 2000lb laser-guided bomb.