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TIL - In some countries motorways have been specifically designed so if a country's air bases are taken out they can be used as runways for the military.

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Y7RVx TIL: In the Zhou dynasty, the waist chop involved slicing the victim into two or more pieces and was famously used on poet Gao Qi who was sliced into 8 pieces due to his political satire. Today the term "waist chop" is used as a metaphor for the cancelation of ongoing projects, primarily TV shows.
mxE4v TIL witches were never depicted with green skin before the 1939 Wizard of Oz film. Witches were commonly depicted as red or orange beforehand. The Wicked Witch of the West was not described as green in the book, and she was only made green in the film because it looked really good in technicolor.
ANJKw TIL Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of Sherlock Holmes, exonerated two innocent men by investigating their cases in his free time. This, in part, led to the establishment of England's criminal appeal system.
7reEP TIL of Peter Conover Hains, who is the only Civil War veteran to also serve in World War I
4nno TIL Japanese Macaques have local accents, just like humans. They also season their food (in salt water) and roll snowballs for fun.