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TIL that during World War I, a German armed merchant cruiser, disguised as the British ocean liner HMS Carmania, was unexpectedly confronted and sunk by the real HMS Carmania in a head-to-head clash.

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PYaGG TIL straight plastic bag bans implemented in Chicago and Hawaii resulted in many stores just upping the thickness of their plastic bags to 2.25 mils to cross the threshold that separates “single-use” plastic from “reusable” plastic bags under many bag laws.
Kpd9 TIL The Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution abolished slavery EXCEPT as a form of punishment for crimes
d86bQ TIL the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster eats yeasts that grow on rotting fruit, which can contain up to 6% alcohol. By consuming alcohol, the fruit fly kills wasp larvae that have hatched inside its body which would otherwise eat the fruit fly from the inside out.
ADa5g TIL: During the 1920 Olympics in Belgium a man who had just come third in the diving stole the official Olympic flag as a dare. He returned it 103 years old in the year 2000
rKYe TIL the original height of Mount Everest “was calculated to be exactly 29,000 ft (8,839.2 m) high, but was publicly declared to be 29,002 ft (8,839.8 m) in order to avoid the impression that an exact height of 29,000 feet (8,839.2 m) was nothing more than a rounded estimate.”