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TIL Abolitionist Frederick Douglass was fortunate to have been taught to read by his owner mistress and he would go on to become one of the major literary figures of his time. By the Civil War and during Reconstruction, Douglass became the most famed and widely travelled orator in the nation

X056D [TIL] That, in an attempt to make multicultural characters, DV created SNOWFLAME - a Colombian drug lord whose special powers came from snorting an obscene amount of cocaine.
eQZE TIL the Australian Mk 3 Centurion 169041 was nicknamed “The Atomic Tank” due to it surviving a 9.1kt blast from 460m away. The tank was simply driven off after the test and went on to spend another 23 years in service, including time in the Vietnam war.
XE6Rj TIL: Switzerland is famous for their strict neutrality, however Sweden has been neutral for as long as Switzerland. Switzerland fought their last war in 1815, Sweden in 1814. Neither are members of NATO nor participated in either World War.
rLVw TIL that the “Red Zone” in France, where some of the most intense combat from WW1 took place, is utterly uninhabitable. Countless undetonated chemical weapons and explosives riddle the earth which, along with the tons of human remains, have rendered the soil and water highly toxic.
KOLDJ TIL Scottish scientists were awarded £250,000 in funding for a 3 year program to breed sheep who fart less. First they will work out how much methane the sheep produce; then they'll attempt to create more of the animals who fart the least.