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TIL the word 'grenade' comes from the French word for pomegranate whose outer appearance and seeds resemble a grenade and its fragments

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R5nk1 TIL that South Africa is the only country in the world to have both polygamy and same sex marriage legally recognised
P1glw TIL that Marvin the Martian only made five appearances in the original run of Looney Tunes cartoons.
W7EPL TIL that in 1943, the hull of the tanker ship SS Schenectady cracked in half while docked in Portland, Oregon. The sound of the fracture was reported to have been heard over a mile away, and the cause of the failure wasn’t fully understood for another 50 years.
R7Nn4 TIL that in World War II, the Allies suspected the Nazis of using the Leaning Tower of Pisa as an observation post. A US Army General was sent to evaluate the scenario but was so impressed by the beauty of the campanile that he refused to order an artillery strike in order to preserve it.
kONl1 TIL that transparent aluminum, the fictitious material in the Star Trek Voyage Home film (1986) has been actually invented.