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TIL Allied tanks were mired in the hedgerows of the French countryside. An American Sgt. came up with the idea to deconstruct Nazi anti-tank "hedgehogs" and re-weld them into crude brush cutters, mounted to the front of Sherman tanks. It was hugely successful and allowed Allied forces to break out.

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awB1A TIL of the micromort, a unit of risk defined as one one-in-a-million chance of death. Travelling 10km on a bike, 400km in a car, and 10,000km via jet all expose you to 1 μmt of risk. Simply existing at age 90 exposes you to 300 μmt a day.
4Ze5 TIL the second Shah of Iran built a marble slide for his underground baths that was specifically designed for women in his harem to use to slide “into the arms of their lord and master before being playfully dunked in a pool.”
oRMpo TIL that the one of the strongest tornadoes in history was not in the United States, but in the Holy Roman Empire (modern-day Germany).
j6ZZR TIL at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the New York City Ballet was on tour in the USSR and the Bolshoi Ballet was on tour in the USA
9wADM TIL That eggplants, tomatoes and avocados are botanically classified as berries but that a strawberry is not a berry at all.