› added 3 years ago

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TIL about a Confederate sabotage device called a coal torpedo, which was a bomb designed to look like a lump of coal and meant to cause a steam ship's boiler to explode

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via reddit.com

LK1v TIL that an Artificial Intelligence turned $20 into $11,000 by gambling
VBkgk TIL Spc. Sean Baker was nearly beaten to death during a training exercise at Gitmo where he played the role of a detainee. Despite using the codeword and identifying himself, the beating only stopped when his jumpsuit ripped revealing fatigues
OGova TIL In Napoleon’s love letters he wrote that he dreams of Josephine's "little black forest"
QJmRd TIL Richie Havens created the song "Freedom" spontaneously at the Woodstock festival as he had nothing else to play, but needed to continue performing as the other acts were delayed. It became his most famous song. He then had to watch the Woodstock movie to learn how to play it.
BBpd TIL after 9/11 there was a proposal to “to consider taking Saudi out of Arabia by forcibly seizing control of the oil fields, giving the Hijaz back to the Hashemites, and delegating control of Medina and Mecca to a multinational committee of moderate, non-Wahhabi Muslims”