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TIL George S. Patton held a speech, so popular that it became known as “The Speech” where he justified his “chicken-shit drilling” by claiming “A man must be alert at all times. If not some German son-of-a-bitch will sneak up behind him and beat him to death with a sock full of shit.”

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gxjy TIL British gunboats were having problems being lit on fire during World War II, so they designed a special diesel engine with the cylinders in a DELTA configuration. The engine worked so well, it is still in service 70 years later, and is half the size of its competitors. But just a 5th the weight.
R7Rj7 TIL Pistachios used to almost always be sold coated with a deep red dye, to hide harmlessly but unattractively splotchy hulls. Discolored hulls is no longer an issue with better harvesting technology, allowing today's pistachios to be sold without dye.
dD5EE TIL that transplanted organs can change the host’s personality to align more closely to the donor’s personality.
jNgMn TIL the Philippines was assigned on the eastern side of the International Date Line, making it one day behind its Asian neighbors until 1844.
jXEa TIL it is predicated that all multicellular life on Earth will die out from a lack of CO2 in the atmosphere in 800 million years, 6.59 billion years before the earth is engulfed by the red giant sun