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TIL the "Wow! Signal", a 72-second radio signal detected in 1977, is the strongest candidate for an alien transmission ever received Its frequency (1420 MHz) was near the hydrogen line, ideal for interstellar communication, and its intensity was 30 times stronger than background noise. Despite numer

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Z8LkB TIL: While filming the 1925 Ben-Hur the director split Italian extras based on fascist or antifascist factions to make the fighting more realistic. Real swords were removed from the scene to prevent things from getting too out of hand
5G1D TIL that the Soviets found that sniper duties fit women well, since good snipers are patient, careful, deliberate, can avoid hand-to-hand combat, and need higher levels of aerobic conditioning than other troops.
0Opv TIL that researchers did an analysis of the staggering amounts of benzoylecgonine (cocaine excretions in the urine) found in the Po River in Italy and determined the daily amount of cocaine being used by the people that fed into the river to be 8.8lbs.
Wkjg8 TIL that British troops never simply marched straight into gunfire at the battle of the Somme. Instead, the reason for the staggering casualties was due to strategic blunders, the concentrated battlefield, and the preparedness of the German forces.
B9WD TIL it was widely believed in the 17th and 18th centuries that man was powered by explosions, such that 23,000 times a day, a human breathed in air containing nitrous particles that, combined with the fire of the heart or the sparks of nerves, created the small explosions that moved the body.