› added 9 years ago

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TIL that at the Battle of Verdun a group of French soldiers, boxed in by German forces and without communications, was saved by a messenger dog. The dog, named Satan, managed to bring the soldiers two carrier pigeons, allowing them to send the Germans’ position to French artillery.

BgY0x TIL the Plymouth Pilgrims, a few years after celebrating the First Thanksgiving, sent armed men to arrest the leader of a nearby settlement who had set up a maypole, sang bawdy songs and invited Native American women to join them in celebrating the traditional English May Day holiday
pYroe TIL that when J.R.R. Tolkien was asked what he thought about Frank Herbert’s novel Dune, he replied he disliked it “with some intensity” and said it wouldn’t be fair to say anything negative about another working author.
m1LDR TIL A 46,000-year-old worm found in Siberian permafrost was brought back to life.
R7Dja TIL that there is a punctuation mark for sarcasm. Introduced in 2010, the "SarcMark" looks like a reversed 6 with a dot in the middle. It is used just like the question mark or exclamation mark, except this mark indicates irony or sarcasm. However, anyone hoping to use it must pay $1.99 (£1.20).
0W85 TIL the Polish 303 Squadron claimed the highest number of kills (126) of all fighter squadrons engaged in the Battle of Britain. Constituting 5% of the pilots active during the Battle of Britain, they were responsible for 12% of total victories