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TIL: The University of Pennsylvania uncovered illustrations with instructions from the 1500s on the use of cats and doves to burn down castles. You strap a sack to the cat, ignite it, and send it to the castle. The plan was part of a manual by artillery master Franz Helm.

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lolAG TIL on the Faroe Islands, The male Y chromosomes of the population are of 87% Scandinavian descent, while the female X chromosomes are of 84% Scottish/Irish descent.
jNPv TIL that the middle finger of Galileo Galilei is on display at the Museo Galileo in Florence.
kOLm TIL the deepest hole ever drilled reached 7.6 miles (12.3 km) before drilling was stopped because the temperature at that depth became too high at 356°F (180°C)
D1mVr TIL A doctor saved life by sucking urine from a man's bladder mid-flight to NYC
ANrBB TIL that more than 16 million official U.S. military personnel records were destroyed when the sixth floor of the National Personnel Records Center caught fire in 1973. The archive did not have a sprinkler system, smoke detectors, or firewalls