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TIL - Before Radar Great Britain built huge concrete structures that acted as a ultra sensitive microphone to detect incoming enemy airplanes.

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xVyb1 TIL that in Japan there are trains that bark like dogs to scare deer that come to lick the rails to get iron
Z8lmv TIL it is said that René Descartes René constructed an automaton in his daughter's likeness after she died of scarlet fever; only to have the robot Francine smashed and thrown overboard as a work of Satan during a voyage at sea.
neNVo TIL in 1972, President Richard Nixon called Miami Dolphins head coach Don Shula before the Super Bowl and recommended he run a certain play. The week prior, he reportedly did the same thing with the Washington Redskins. Both teams ran the plays he suggested; both plays failed. Both teams lost.
jNyxM TIL only less than 2% of the uranium in Little Boy, the bomb that was dropped onto Hiroshima, actually fissioned. This was still enough to kill 66,000 people and have a fatal blast radius of 1.3km.
1amE8 TIL about "Dear Diary," a 1996 made-for-TV pilot starring Bebe Neuwirth. ABC passed on the show, and it wasn't broadcast. However, it was slightly edited and shown in one L.A. theatre on one weekend to qualify for an Oscar. It won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film.