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TIL Israel kamakawiwo'ole (deceased singer of “Over The Rainbow”) was the 3rd person in Hawaiian history to have the flag at half-staff and his coffin placed inside the state Capitol building in Honolulu after his death; the other two people were politicians.

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PYmjO TIL On a postflight tour in China in 1982, astronauts from STS-3 showed pictures of an emerald-colored lake taken over China to a crowd in Beijing and accidentally revealed a secret atomic test site.
MeW77 TIL A man writing a book about an attack on the WTC was inside the Marriot hotel next door when the hotel collapsed on 9/11. He was saved by firefighters and evacuated off a metal beam from the 2nd floor after the hotel fell
LkmO9 TIL that Canada signed the wrong line on the Japanese instrument of surrender at the end of WW2
OoRDL TIL In 2008, a man altered an old story he had written to resemble Kung Fu Panda, then sued DreamWorks for $12 million. After the court found out he was lying, he was sentenced to 2 years in prison.
NXeNE TIL In the 1940's, the Japanese army designed specialized bombs full of live mice, specifically to infect Chinese and Korean civilians with the Plague (which has a 70% mortality rate without immediate treatment).