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TIL: Pedi people (a tribe in South Africa) wear Scottish kilts. Citing oral history, the use of kilts dates to 1879. They say that's when the tribe lost a battle because its warriors thought kilted Scots leading a British army were women and held their fire until realizing their mistake too late.

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E1M9w TIL That Colgate once tried to expand their product line by making frozen dinners. "Colgate Kitchen Entrees" remains one of the worst brand expansion attempts in history.
aj8b TIL French fashion designer, Gabrielle Bonheur “Coco” Chanel (1883 –1971), along with being anti-semitic, homophobic, and addicted to morphine, was a spy for the Third Reich.
5VWMD TIL that an Australian man survived a wildfire by scuba diving in his friend’s pool while the fire raged around him
0d87R TIL of the Mechanical Turk, a chess-playing "automaton" from the 1700s actually operated by a cleverly hidden human. It toured the palaces of Europe, even playing against Benjamin Franklin and Napoleon, who attempted to cheat multiple times, prompting the Turk to swipe all the pieces off the board.
AAon TIL Ulrich von Liechtenstein, Heath Ledger’s character in “A Knight’s Tale”, was a real person.