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TIL during WW2 after the Nazis had taken over France, Churchill made the decision to attack the French naval fleet rather than let it fall into enemy hands. The bombardment killed nearly 2,000 men. France then severed all diplomatic relations with the UK and even mounted several retaliation attacks.

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dD4Qd TIL that masers (laser-like directed energy weapons using microwave radiation instead of visible light) actually predate lasers by several years, and in fact some of the earliest lasers were even referred to as "optical masers"
8aG4P TIL that lyme disease was not as common in the past as it is now, and its prevalence is actually due to an explosion in the white-footed mouse population at the turn of the 20th century. This in turn coincides with the extinction of the mouse's primary ecological competitor: the passenger pigeon.
6mvl TIL that besides 9/11, the only other attack by an outside force on Washington D.C. was in 1814 when George Cockburn, an admiral in the British Royal Navy, literally walked into the White House, ate James Madison’s dinner, drank his wine, and then set fire to the place.
QJD5X TIL that the US has refused to continue funding the nuclear claims tribunal set up to compensate islanders that suffered radiation-related diseases from testing. So far it's paid less than $4 million of a $2.2 billion damage judgement. More than half of the affected islanders have died since.
09ry TIL the collective noun for flamingos is a “flamboyance”.