› added 2 weeks ago

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TIL about the siege of Dura-Europos, one of history's first use of chemical weapons and tunnel warfare, during the siege the Persians dug tunnels to bypass the Roman walls, Romans dug their own tunnels to reach them and fight them but the Persians released sulphur dioxide in the tunnels, killing 20.

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via reddit.com

rR6ge TIL the ship in Alien is named for the titular character in Joseph Conrad's "Nostromo" and means "shipmate" in Italian. The ship from Aliens, the Sulaco is named for the port-town in the novel.
894G TIL artist Peter von Tiesenhausen made the top 6 inches of his 800 acre farm a copyrighted work of art to keep oil pipelines out. It costs oil companies $500/h to talk to him
D1paY TIL that groups of dolphins pass around puffer fishes to get high. The puffer fish is carried in their mouth till it releases a small dose of neurotoxin.
Wn5d TIL the Super Soaker inventor is a Tuskegee-trained NASA engineer who used the money earned from a toy to do research on solar power and batteries
N77gQ TIL that ice cream company Ben & Jerry's has a real life graveyard for dicontinued flavours