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TIL: During WWII, armies deployed Searchlight Units to aide night time movement, detect enemies and dazzle enemies. They were called "Moonlight Batteries". On cloudy nights, the units could bounce the light off clouds to provide diffuse lighting.

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wojd1 TIL that the Voynich manuscript, a 240-page codex from the early 1400s, is written in an unknown script that has never been deciphered. The codex is filled with fantastical illustrations and its purpose and origins are unknown.
nW5mb TIL a chemistry student accidentally synthesized the chemical MPTP and gave himself Parkinson's syndrome.
rdjo TIL in 1917 journalist H.L. Mencken published a hoax news article stating bathtubs were popularized in the US by Pres. Millard Fillmore after he had one installed in the White House. Thirty years later, even after he admitted it was false, it was still being reprinted as fact.
WNYN TIL that Astronaut Ice Cream flew on only one mission. It was too crumbly, not very popular with the Astronauts, and the technology to carry up real ice cream was in place by 1972.
Xd0D Til Sergey Bubka broke the pole vault world record in 1984 then kept breaking it every year after by as small an amount as possible for the reward money.