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TIL Whale oil was used as transmission fluid up until 1972. America used over 14 million kg of sperm whale oil lubricant per year. Sperm oil was also a valuable lubricant known for being non-corrosive for metals and withstanding both high and cold temperatures.

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KOl7J TIL that in 1942, the HNLMS Abraham Crijnssen, a Dutch minesweeper based in the Netherlands East Indies, successfully disguised itself as a tropical island for several weeks in order to evade Japanese patrols, while withdrawing towards Australia after Allied setbacks in the region during the war.
erQE TIL the Vietnamese once repelled a Mongol naval invasion of ~400 ships by filling a river with iron-tipped spikes and then luring the ships in at high tide. The fleet was trapped at low tide and overwhelmed by a Vietnamese ambush.
jNZaX TIL that when Isaac Newton was 20, he compiled a list of his sins. They included: "threatening my father and mother Smith to burne them and the house over them", "peevishness with my mother". and "wishing death and hoping it to some".
v19QL TIL that Sidepony Express Music Festival, in a small mining and border town Bisbee, AZ, is known as a music festival for musicians. There are often over 100 bands from all over the Southwest, and they play 45 minute sets, back to back, at all the music venues in town:
AlGg TIL that the word seventeen-lettered contains exactly seventeen letters. This makes it autological, meaning the word describes itself.