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TIL that Soviet artillery launched an attack in 1942 to silence German guns specifically so that Shostakovich's 7th Symphony could premiere in Leningrad, even though the city was under siege and the musicians were starving to death, with three dying during rehearsals

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nevW7 TIL exponential, log and trig functions are examples of transcendental functions, which "transcend" algebra as they can't be expressed with a sequence of the algebraic operations of addition, multiplication and root extraction. Unlike algebraic functions, they can't satisfy polynomial equations.
Bgnnb TIL that apple had one of their sounds be named sosumi (pronounced so sue me) because apple corps kept suing them for defying their rules.
D7xV TIL that during the 1904 Summer Olympics Marathon, a Cuban postman who arrived last minute came in 4th despite running in street clothes that he cut into shorts and falling ill after eating rotten apples during a break he took in an orchard.
E17ow TIL: about the strange case of Bella the unidentified woman found dead inside a hollow tree in WW2. No one has ever been charged with her murder and no one is sure who she was although rumours speculated that she was a spy, she was killed by witches and that she was a a missing prostitute.
ADK6a TIL the plague that wiped out 50% of 14th Century Europe was never really eradicated. There is an average of 7 cases of plague every year in the US. The disease usually spreads through flea bites or by eating tainted meat. It usually hits the rural west of the US. (2:04)