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TIL One of the first soldiers to charge the beach on D-Day was a Canadian bagpiper, who only survived because he said German Snipers thought he was to crazy to shoot

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67wm TIL: Nearly 150 babies were named Khaleesi in 2012.
R555w TIL Cher's 1998 hit "Believe" is the first song to use Auto-Tune. The singer believed her career was hitting "rock bottom," and after hearing a different song with a wobble effect created by a vocoder (a voice effect pedal tool), decided she wanted to create a similar song.
NepJ TIL Chinese guerrillas during WWII were given bags of flour, mixed with the powdery white high explosive HMX, to bypass Japanese checkpoints. The resulting mixture could safely be cooked into pancakes and eaten. Leftover dough and pastries could still be used as explosives. Code name: “Aunt Jemima.”
wdP6 TIL that during the filming of the nude co-ed shower scene in Starship Troopers, director Paul Verhoeven was also completely naked. It was the only way the actors agreed to film the scene.
NPMP TIL When it was discovered that Hasbro’s flubber toy was discovered to be toxic they attempted to incinerate the remaining stock (which didn’t work) then attempted to bury it in the ocean (it just floated to the top) and finally buried it under a new parking lot.