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TIL 300 years before the crusades, the Islamic Umayyad Caliphate attempted to conquer Western Europe

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4aQb TIL Tim Duncan grew up in the US Virgin Islands where he was gearing up for the 1992 Olympics as a competitive swimmer until Hurricane Hugo destroyed the island’s only Olympic-sized pool. The only alternative was to swim in the ocean, and Duncan was afraid of sharks, so he turned to basketball.
6EZE8 TIL that less than half the claims made on The Dr. Oz Show were backed by "some" evidence, and that fell to a third when the threshold was raised to "believable" evidence.
QmXa TIL that the scene in Terminator 2: Judgement Day where a helicopter flies under an overpass was not CGI, it was stunt performed by helicopter pilot Chuck Tamburro. The stunt was so dangerous that the film crew refused to film it, so James Cameron had to film the sequence himself.
5YnP TIL that the reason the Toronto Maple Leafs are not called the Maple “Leaves” is that the name was chosen in honour of the Maple Leaf Regiment from World War I. As the regiment is a proper noun, its plural is Maple Leafs (not Maple Leaves).
e0Gng TIL that the biggest ship in the ancient world the Tessarakonteres had 4,000 oarsmen. Most believe that the boat was so big that it wasn’t really functional.