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TIL During the war with Pakistan in 1971, the Indian Air Force was commanded by a Muslim; the Army Commander was a Parsi (Zoroastrian), the General Officer of the Army in Bangladesh was a Sikh, and the General flown in to negotiate the surrender of the Pakistani forces in East Bengal was Jewish.

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eW84 TIL that in World War II the United States created a program called “Hemp for Victory” where farmers and their sons wouldn’t be drafted if they grew Cannabis for the war effort.
Y7KJx TIL Swiss German has no standard spelling. People write phonetically based on their dialect, so texts vary widely. Speakers can often tell someone's village by their accent or word choice.
d8b6r TIL the Stephen King book, The Tommyknockers, was loosely based on a creature from the folklore of Cornish miners. To some, knockers were malevolent spirits who knocked on supports to cause a cave-in. To others, the knocking a way of warning the miners that a collapse was imminent.
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