› added 6 years ago

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TIL during the first combat usage of the American Sidewinder missile in 1958, a dud hit an enemy plane and became lodged without exploding. The pilot returned to base, allowing Soviet engineers to study it and reverse-engineer a nearly identical missile for their own use.

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8eM0Z TIL about failed WW2 plot: Operation Pastorius. In which Americans were recruited by Nazis to sabotage the US from within.
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x6Ln5 TIL that after Terry Jones filmed the 1996 adaptation of Kenneth Grahame's "The Wind in the Willows" with live actors, the US distributor essentially ignored it. Eventually, Jones heard that the film was being shown in 1 US cinema; when he went there, he found out that it was a pornographic cinema.
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YpZ1A TIL that when the very famous mime Jean-Gaspard Duburau (creator of the modern Pierrot) was accused of murder in 1836, hundreds of Parisians came to the courthouse. Not for the trial itself but just to finally hear the voice of the mime.