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TIL of the Rüsselsheim massacre. In 1944, 6 American surrendered airmen were lynched by German townsfolk angered by previous bombing raids. The perpetrators were tried and many executed after the war.

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9Rap TIL that in 1963-6 a 120ft supergun fired over 200 projectiles weighing as much 180kg each as far as 180km into space from the Caribbean island of Barbados, setting an altitude record that has still not been broken - and the abandoned supergun is still in place on the island.
mxMQO TIL in the UK at any one time, there is an average of 3.8 billion genuine banknotes in circulation, with a notional face value of around £75 billion.
0dZ1A TIL that emergency and civil defense sirens are called such because an early model could make sound underwater, like the seaborn sirens of Greek mythology
JY67B TIL German man Oskar Speck kayaked from Germany to Australia over the period 1932-1939. On his arrival in Australia, shortly after the start of WWII, Speck was interned as an enemy foreigner. He remained in prisoner-of-war camps for the duration of the war, but stayed in the country after the war
wo8l8 TIL The energy in nuclear waste could power the U.S. for 100 years, but the technology was never commercialized