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TIL the highest-ranking officer of the British Royal Navy at the start of World War 1, was a German prince named Louis of Battenberg, who was made to resign and later abandon his German dynastic titles due to anti-German sentiment in Britain

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84xK TIL scientist Craig Venter created a cell with the smallest genome of any known (independent) organism. With 473 genes, the cell is a milestone to reduce life to its bare essentials and to design life from scratch.
awOrZ TIL about the Battle for Castle Itter, where in the closing days of WWII a small group of Americans, French prisoners, a surrendered SS officer, and several Wehrmacht soldiers fortified an Austrian castle and held off a force of marauding SS soldiers.
ep7J4 TIL automakers overengineer cars to go over the speed limit to improve reliability. By making a vehicle that can drive up to 120 mph, there’s less strain on the engine when it spends a lifetime of going 65 mph.
4Xxo5 TIL that in the Falklands, an abandoned minefield has accidentally become a penguin sanctuary. The mines were set in the Falklands conflict and have remained there since, keeping humans away. The local Magellanic penguins are too small to set them off and have thrived in the area.
RVva TIL that in 1970, a group of hikers outside of Bergen, Norway, suddenly came upon the charred, naked corpse of a woman in the middle of the Isdalen Valley. The woman was nicknamed the Isdal Woman and her story remains one of Norway’s deepest mysteries.