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TIL during WWII, Bill Tutte cracked the German Lorenz cipher using nothing more than a pen and paper, and having never seen the machine, after the Germans accidentally sent the same message twice. It is described as one the the greatest intellectual feats of the 20th Century.

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6xQ8 TIL that the Voyager 2 carried a tape recorder whose reels rotated at high speeds which caused issues with its operations. Due to the conservation of angular momentum, the space probe started an undesirable rotation in the opposite direction whenever the tape recorder was turned on.
gkJW TIL that every military working dog is always one rank higher than its handler so that mistreatment of the dog is considered assault on an officer of higher rank.
KOMKE TIL That, despite the relative rarity of ring galaxies, our photograph of Hoag's Object reveals yet another ring galaxy in the background.
Ooyb1 TIL of Ekaterina Mikhailova-Demina, who was the only woman to have served in front-line reconnaissance in the Soviet marines during WWII. She carried hundreds of men to safety. In 1944, she helped assault a Ukrainian city, singlehandedly attacking a German position and taking 14 prisoners.
QN0mX TIL - Wayne Gretzky went undrafted