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TIL The English seaside resort of Blackpool was left mostly unscathed by bombing during the Blitz. Documents have suggested that Hitler wanted it preserved as a place for recreation once Germany invaded and conquered England.

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b6mK9 TIL Étienne Léopold Trouvelot, a French entomologist, living in Medford, Mass. in the late 1800s, decided to create a cross-breed of caterpillars from native North American moths and European caterpillars Lymantria dispar, in order to start a competitive silk industry. (rest of the story in comment)
4X55a TIL a miner in the California desert spent 40 years digging a half-mile tunnel alone, by hand. Twenty years into the project, the state completed a road that eliminated the need for the tunnel, but the miner spent another two decades finishing it.
BoaL TIL Nasir ad-Din Tusi, a Persian polymath, developed a theory of evolution by natural selection 600 years before Darwin. He wrote that hereditary variability is the leading force of evolution, and that organisms which can change faster are ‘more variable’, thus giving them an advantage over others
j7rX TIL A study found that because 75% of students had to work while going to college only part time, over 75% were unable to finish even after 8 years. Only 6.1% of working part time students graduated within 4 years, and only 25% graduate within 8.
8X0a TIL that Elaine’s father on Seinfeld, played by Lawrence Tierney, was supposed to be a recurring character, but he horrified the cast and made threatening gestures toward Seinfeld with a knife.