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TIL Stork embroidery scissors were originally umbilical clamps used by midwives to restrict blood flow before cutting. Midwives began sharpening them as sewing scissors to use during the long awaited times before delivery.

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Oon7e TIL That the "Red Orchestra" was the name given by the Gestapo to a group of German professionals, intellectuals and artists in Nazi Germany that resisted the regime from 1933-1942. They provided intelligence to allies, sheltered Jews, and were ultimately discovered by the Nazis and executed.
5V9Rp TIL that when Saddam Hussein was hiding in bunkers too deep for any bomb in the US inventory, the US filled an entire 16-foot hardened steel artillery barrel with explosives, welded fins to it and airdropped it, creating the first 'Bunker Buster'. Iraq withdrew from Kuwait the very next day.
YYp7 TIL Franklin D. Pierce, 14th President of the United States, was asked what he would do next as he was leaving office. He replied, “There’s nothing left [to do] but get drunk.” Twelve year later, he died from cirrhosis of the liver.
l7eOa TIL Sigmund Freud's personal library in London has over 1600 books showing his wide range of interests and are still searchable today through the Freud Museum. Authors Freud had include Darwin, Locke, Feuerbach, Krafft-Ebing, Shakespeare, Goethe and Dostoevsky
b70 TIL the crew of the Mayflower II cast a message in a bottle overboard in 1957 that was signed by all of them, including Felix the kitten, with promise of reward. No one knew the whereabouts of the message until it was found at a flea market earlier this year.