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TIL each pawn in chess had a specific name/profession based on its starting position on the board

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OoDlR TIL In 1979 there was an unidentified double-flash of light near the Prince Edward Islands off of Antartica detected by the Vela Hotel Satellite, suspected to be a nuclear test carried out by South Africa and Israel, but no one ever took credit for it.
kJxy1 TIL that the last documented human sacrifice by Mapuche indians happened in 1960, after an earthquake and tsunami. A five-year-old had his legs and arms amputed, stuck into the sand like a stake and his body carried by the ocean. A Chilean judge left them free based on "ancient tradition"
j6kVa TIL: The Lord of the Rings is presented as a translation of a book originally written in Westron, the common speech of Middle-earth. Therefore, Frodo Baggins' real name in Westron is Maura Labingi.
BgdAK TIL about Prophyrios, a whale that wreaked havoc on ships over a 50 year period in Greece during the middle ages. The Greek king made it an important matter to capture it, though he could not come up with a way to do so.
b9R1a TIL there is a machine called a ballast cleaner. It's sole purpose is to wash stones on railway lines. In the UK, one operator's ballast cleaner washes around 1.6km of stones every night.