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TIL a villager in China unknowingly used a hand grenade to crack walnuts for a quarter century, until he saw the grenade in a government flyer

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6EAx8 TIL of Robert Smalls, a slave during the Civil War who escaped by commandeering a Confederate transport ship, persuaded Lincoln to allow African-Americans in the army, and later became a US House Representative. One of his final actions as a leader was to stop a lynch mob from killing two black men.
kOdYm TIL the VLC media player uses a traffic cone for its icon because the students who created it drunkenly started a traffic cone collection
rR7Eo TIL that the final “You’re safe now” scene in Captain Phillips was never in the script but was added on the fly and ad-libbed. The staff of the infirmary were actual crew members of the USS Bainbridge, did not know they were going to be in the movie and just reacted to Hank’s acting.
4Z4J TIL that when the Greek ships reached the beach of Troy, no one would jump ashore, since there was a prophecy that the first Greek to jump on Trojan soil would die. Odysseus tossed his shield on the shore and jumped on his shield so the person who was tricked into following him would die instead
OMJ4 TIL a POW named Charlie Cavendish told Swiss inspectors of the awful conditions that they were living in. He knew that the SS would kill him for doing so, but continued anyway to save his fellow men, which he did. Cavendish was missing at roll call the next day and was never seen again.