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TIL During WWII the Allied forces would drop clouds of thin strips of aluminum foil from aircraft to overwhelm enemy radar in a countermeasure known as “Window.”

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XEGoR TIL the "piano" means "soft" in Italian. The instrument's name is actually short for "pianoforte" (soft-loud) which is short for “gravicembalo col piano e forte” (harpsichord with soft and loud). Calling it "piano" defeats the purpose of its original name that meant to depict its dynamic sound.
grDW TIL that devices have been developed to remove the blur from Japanese porn in real-time, revealing otherwise obscured genitals
yQmxV TIL about Drayton Daugherty, a doctor who cured a dying man by pretending to undo a voodoo hex in a last ditch effort after modern medicine didn't work. The man believed he was cured and lived for ten more years.
mx1v TIL that natural gas doesn’t actually have a smell - the ‘smell’ of a gas leak is actually mercaptan, which is added to warn people of leaking gas.
E1OJo TIL there is an evolutionary recent type of parasitic plant, some of which are orchid species, that cannot do photosynthesis anymore. Instead they grow underground for several years before emerging with stems and pale colorless flowers. They obtain all their nutrients by parasitizing mushrooms.