› added 12 years ago

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TIL Enigma (German WWII encryption) was broken in part because operators used guessable passcodes, including letter repeats, adjacent key letters, four letter German names, and obscenities.

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awBwL TIL an Aboriginal man planted a flag on the cliffs of Dover in 1988 and claimed England for the Aborigines
jNaEX TIL The CIA extracted 6 US diplomats from Iran during the 1980 hostage crisis using comic book artist Jack Kirby's concept art for a scrapped movie as a cover story when they convinced authorities they were part of a Canadian film crew scouting locations for a movie titled Argo which was made up.
pYaoQ Today I learned that "ground beef" meant beef that has been ground via some sort of grinding process, not beef that came from the land.
R5LAa TIL Because tungsten and gold have almost identical weights, fake gold bars and coins made from tungsten cannot be identified by the usual method of density testing, and ultrasound has to be used instead.
x6P7b TIL of Irene of Athens (750-803 CE), the first sole-ruling empress in Roman history. Her husband the emperor having died, she had her son's eyes gouged, and him imprisoned, becoming sole ruler for 5 years, when she was exiled to the island of Lesbos and forced to support herself by spinning wool.