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TIL that after a horse ran into No Man's Land during World War I and got shot, French soldiers decided to replace it with a fake papier-mache horse with a sniper inside. He also had a telephone wire so he could message back to the trenches on enemy movement. The ploy was discovered after three days.

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Bgp5y TIL that chromium makes steel stainless by reacting with oxygen and creating a layer of chromium oxide (chrome) that prevents oxygen from further oxidizing (rusting) the metal. All thanks to a random knife maker on YouTube.
R6p7 TIL the Great Extinction that wiped out most life 65.5 million years ago was precipitated by 5 degree C warming over 1000 years. This rate is 10 times slower than that of the last 100 years.
wLwOE TIL 50 Cent once challenged Floyd Mayweather to read one page of a Harry Potter book
e0LYL TIL that in 1949, Gallup polled Americans on what scientific advances they thought would happen by the year 1999. 88% believed cancer would be cured, and 63% believed planes would be nuclear powered. Only 15% thought a man would walk on the moon.
awJm0 TIL that Orcas will attack a blue whale, who outweigh them by several hundred ton, just for funsies.