› added 5 months ago

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TIL at the Battle of Red Cliffs in 208 AD, Chinese General Cao Cao captured the naval port of Jiangling and seized a river fleet. He lashed his boats together into clusters to stabilize them for queasy troops. Enemy troops lit their own boats on fire and sent them at the fleet, burning them all down

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Prge TIL a Japanese town whose goal is to recycle 100% of its trash (currently at 80%), has 34 different recycling categories.
X0LLk TIL about Casu Martzu (literally "rotten cheese), a Sardinian cheese filled with living maggots. It is banned in the EU but, somehow, a black market for the product exists.
OGoY6 TIL An Lushan, a 8th century Tang dynasty general who rebelled against the dynasty, was a Caucasian guy with colored hair and eyes (Persian nomadic ethnicity in central Asia). 13 million people died as an aftermath of the rebellion and war
YkpW TIL that birds can actually see the earth’s magnetic field and use it like the head’s-up display in airplanes
dDxwQ TIL that European aristocrats thought tomatoes were poisonous in the 1700s and nicknamed them "poison apples". In fact the problem was aristocrats used pewter plates and the acid in the tomatoes leached the lead into the food.