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TIL a Nazi fighter pilot was ordered to shoot down a crippled American B-17, but instead escorted it out of the kill zone. After WWII, the two pilots met and became best friends until their death.

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QJgQ9 TIL that "twitchers" are committed bird-watchers who travel long distances to see new species. They have their own jargon, including "nemesis" for a bird that has eluded them despite multiple attempts to see it, and "plastic" for a bird that escaped from captivity rather than being genuinely wild.
E51w TIL Howard Hughes bought an entire casino just so he could tear down their neon sign. Visible from Hughes’ bedroom, it apparently had kept him up at night.
NXVaE TIL about medical maggot teabag therapy - Maggot bags are used to clean away dead tissue while ignoring living flesh, while secreting antimicrobial molecules that disinfect the wound. They are proving useful against the rise of bacteria that's resistant to several widely used antibiotics.
69E8W TIL that in April of 1861, Former President Franklin Pierce wrote to the other living former presidents and asked them to consider meeting to use their stature and influence to propose a negotiated end to the war. However, this idea was ultimately never acted on.
5an8 TIL that in 1940, while fighting the Battle of Britain and desperate to gain American support to win WW2, Great Britain handed over technologies to the USA that included radar, sonar, plastic explosives, the jet engine and the first practical calculations for the atomic bomb.