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TIL of Luigi Cadorna, Italian WWI general. Infamously inept, he sent 300k troops to die in the Alps, randomly executing his own soldiers to motivate them.

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vPejD TIL: Starfish Prime was the largest nuclear test in space. At 250 miles in the air, it EMPed 900 miles of Hawaii, frying electrical systems, setting off burglar alarms, and shut down 6+ satellites due to the months long radiation belt. After 5 years, traces of the electrons still linger in space.
grEO4 TIL that in 2014, in Hangu, Pakistan, 14 year old Aitzaz Hasan Bangash saved his high school from a suicide bomber by confronting the man alone. While other students fled into the school for safety and to raise the alarm, Aitzaz held the man at bay until his bomb detonated, ending his life.
xXg0 TIL that in 1973, a drunk driver struck and killed the world’s most isolated tree, in the middle of the Sahara desert
xVjwo TIL the last Saturday of each month in Rwanda is Umuganda day, which means 'coming together in common purpose', when adult Rwandans are required to join in country wide clean-up tasks like picking up litter
GYb1Q TIL of Masanobu Tsuji, a Japanese war criminal who executed POWs on Bataan, fled to Indochina, and disappeared into Laos in 1961. He was later rumored to be working for North Vietnam. A CIA report said he was "the type of man who would start World War III without any misgivings."