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TIL That the Soviet Union, and now Russia, have a fail-deadly system which automatically launches a full scale nuclear attack in the event that authoritative command is incapacitated. It uses light, seismic, radioactive, and overpressure systems to activate the launch. It is still in use today.

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Eg6o TIL that during the First World War, Siam (now Thailand) sent an army to fight on the Western Front. Because of this, Thailand is the only independent modern Asian nation to have fought in a European theatre of war.
lobrA TIL of Gabriele Gast, an East German spy who was a high-ranking West German intelligence officer. She spied to continue seeing her lover in East Germany and was never paid for her spy work. However, she later learned that her lover was a professional Stasi seducer who strung her along for 20 years.
r5nw TIL: NSFW - The last public execution in France by beheading (Eugen Weidmann) is on YouTube.
9wvmM TIL that in 1984, an elephant in a German zoo killed 3 hippos by opening a water valve while playing and thus filling their pool with 55°C hot water. The water generated steam that interfered with their breathing, and the hippos (two adults and one baby) died of shock.
KO5kG TIL that in 2006 a court in Maryland decided that mooning was a form of artistic expression.