› added 5 years ago

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TIL that Oklahoma is the only state to have an official state meal (not just a state food). It consists of squash, cornbread, fried okra, BBQ pork, grits, biscuits, sausage and gravy, corn, chicken-fried steak, black-eyed peas, strawberries, and pecan pie.

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O9rL TIL Fritz Christen was the sole survivor of a soviet skirmish. He held out alone for three days, without supplies or provisions, before a german counter-attack rescued him. During that time he single-handedly knocked out 13 soviet tanks and killed nearly 100 enemy soldiers.
KOJMQ TIL that in Hindi (the language predominantly spoken in India), yesterday and tomorrow both share the same word कल (kal). The only way to tell which one is being used is the context and tense of the sentence.
WkdYY TIL a few months before playing a famed role in the Union Army's defense at the Battle of Gettysburg, the 20th Maine experienced a vicious outbreak of smallpox. The entire regiment was quarantined in an effort to protect the rest of the Army of the Potomac.
EgQm0 TIL in World War II several U.S railroad companies sponsored military “railway battalions” to help with the war effort. Company bosses became military officers and 1000’s of American railroad employees joined the effort throughout Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
r6yM TIL that in 1902 Traian Vuia, a Romanian Engineer, designed his first flying machine, then presented his plan to the Académie des Sciences in Paris in 1903, but was rejected with the comment: “The problem of flight with a machine which weighs more than air can not be solved and it is only a dream.”