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TIL that the crusades were preceeded by the “muslim conquest” jihads against italy, including the muslim conquest of Sicily in 827 and the Arab raid against Rome (846). 200 years before the first crusade even happened.

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VBLE8 TIL of Jörg Hartmann and Lothar Schleusener, aged 10 and 13, who were shot dead during an attempt to escape the Berlin Wall in 1966. Their families were notified of their deaths a few days later. "Officially" Jörg had drowned in a lake and Lothar had died from an electric shock near Leipzig.
rRLQW TIL: There are wild hamsters
1ewO TIL one of mathematician John von Neumann’s lecturers said “Johnny was the only student I was ever afraid of. If in the course of a lecture I stated an unsolved problem, the chances were he’d come to me at the end of the lecture with the complete solution scribbled on a slip of paper.”
9YjlM TIL about 1 in 100,000,000 lobsters are "cotton-candy" blue.
XE1Kj TIL Harriet Tubman, in addition to organizing the Underground Railroad, served with the U.S. Army as a scout, spy, nurse and soldier during the Civil War, leading a raid with the African-American 2nd South Carolina regiment that freed over 700 slaves.