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TIL 10 to 15% of George Washington’s army during the Revolutionary war was Black.

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7rKYx TIL the Italian city of Bologna had 180 towers by AD 1200. The tallest, at 320 ft (97 meters) high, still stands and was completed in AD 1119.
oRV5K TIL in 2000 a lawyer in Moscow defending an American accused of espionage delivered his closing arguments in 12 pages of iambic pentameter verse.
NXLkb TIL that during World War I, a pigeon named "Cher Ami" flew 25 miles after being wounded and blinded in one eye, to deliver a critical message that saved nearly 200 soldiers behind enemy lines. Cher Ami (which stands for Dear Friend) was awarded French Croix de Guerre for bravery.
WkKRL TIL that in 1996, the mayors of Athens and Sparta signed a symbolic peace treaty, officially ending hostilities and formally bringing the Peloponnesian War to a close 2,400 years later.
grVED TIL a computer study of over a million samples of normal English prose found that the longest word one is likely to encounter on an everyday basis is 'uncharacteristically' at 20 letters.