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TIL Astronaut Michael Collin’s secret fear was that he had to return to Earth alone, leaving Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stranded on the moon. He sometimes thought it would be better to not have that option.

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JMb1 TIL Rifaat al-Assad, uncle of current embattled Syrian president, flaunted to Thomas Freidman that he killed 38,000 people in the 1982 Hama Massacre. He currently lives in the UK, and since there was no War Crimes Tribunal three decades ago, and the Statute of Limitations, he cannot be prosecuted.
KOPxR TIL there's a mall in Sweden called ReTuna, where everything for sale is recycled, reused, or sustainably produced. Shop owners, including Ikea, refurbish and resell old products for shoppers to purchase.
oBew8 TIL that when George Washington died in 1799, the British Royal Navy was ordered to lower their flags to half mast. The London Morning Chronicle opined that ‘The whole range of history does not present to our view a character upon which we can dwell with such entire and unmixed admiration’.
W76DL TIL that in Tok Pisin, the English-based creole language spoken by millions in Papua New Guinea, the vocabularly is often unrecognizably shifted in meaning from English, for example: "as ples" [ass place -> place of origin], "maus gras" [mouth grass -> moustache], or "belhat" [belly hot -> angry]
E1Naw TIL that in 1665 an outbreak of bubonic plague ravaged London. Those with the financial means to escape to the countryside did just that. Unfortunately for those left behind, the flight from the city included many of its most prominent doctors.