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TIL In 1961, the US Government came up with a plan, coined Operation Plowshare, to use nuclear explosives for “peaceful construction purposes”. One proposal was to widen the Panama Canal by blasting it with those nuclear explosions.

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VyVZ TIL the oldest known song featuring a man talking to his girlfriend over the phone is “Hello Ma Baby” (made popular by Looney Tunes’ Michigan J Frog). It’s over 117 year old and was created when only 10% of the population had telephones.
kOOZW TIL that there is a group of monasteries in Greece called Meteora that are carefully perched on top of cliffs several hundred metres high
rRJ14 TIL Carbon-dated around the early 15th century, the Voynich manuscript is written in an untranslatable language. Studied by many professional and amateur cryptographers, the manuscript has never been demonstrably deciphered and claims that it has been decoded have never been independently verified.
y9ow TIL that during the English Civil War, Lady Mary Bankes defended a castle from over 200 attackers with only five men under her initial command. She would be reinforced by 80 royalists and would hold against a total 600 men for three years before being betrayed and forced to surrender.
VOrG TIL that ounce for ounce, corn flakes cereal has more salt in it than potato chips