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TIL the US owns 1.4 billion pounds of "Government Cheese"

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9YEKB TIL Saint Augustine of Hippo almost married a 10 year old heiress when he was 31. He had to wait 2 more years for the legal marriage age of 12, but became a Catholic Priest before the marriage could happen.
wLQGY TIL in 1992, the UK set up a fake company in order to buy Soviet T-80 tanks, claiming they would be sent to Morocco. The UK studied the tanks and gifted one to the USA for the same purpose.
7rZ9b TIL the Notre Dame Cathedral was left to ruin until it was restored in the 19th century, and the restoration was Eugène Viollet-le-Duc's reimagining of what a Middle-Age Cathedral may have looked like.
wlkE TIL A French woman, Jeanne de Clisson, became a pirate in the 1300’s for revenge after her husband was beheaded. Selling her lands to buy 3 ships, they were painted black with red sails. Hunting French ships, when she caught nobles, she personally beheaded them with an axe.
b9ggp TIL that flint and steel causes a spark because when the steel is struck against a hard object, such as flint, tiny shards of iron come off the steel and immediately oxidize, resulting in sparks.