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TIL that during the Battle of the North Cape the cruiser HMS Belfast pursued the battleship Scharnhorst away from the first engagement, risking Scharnhost's guns in order to keep a radar track to guide a second British fleet into position to sink her

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dDjBj TIL There are flies that have evolved to lose their wings and cannot fly
9YLQ6 TIL that serial killer Paul Knowles was shot dead, while trying to escape from a police car. Apparently, he reached across the back seat, and tried to steal one of the officers' gun.
XEkar TIL that Jerry van Dyke, the younger brother of Dick van Dyke, was offered the lead role in Gilligan's Island but accepted a role in My Mother the Car instead. This show, about a man whose dead mother is reincarnated as a car, ended after one season and is considered among the worst shows ever made.
XRpD TIL that in 1986, Lake Nyos in Cameroon erupted a massive cloud of CO2 that killed a nearby village of 1700 people and 3500 livestock through asphyxiation.
8aOyV TIL necrogamy (posthumous marriage) is legal in France. The living partner must send the President a request, have a serious reason, prove the couple were planning to marry, and get approval from the family of the deceased. At the ceremony, the living partner stands next to a picture of their fiancé