› added 11 years ago

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TIL Hitler gave orders to destroy Paris on the eve of the allied liberation in 1944 but the Nazi General in command deliberately ignored the order

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6aXQ TIL USPS Mail Delivery Vehicles are 25-30 years old & use engines designed in the 1970’s that get 10 MPG
X0ppP TIL the Mechanical Turk was a chess playing machine from 1770 that seemed to be able to compete against a human chess player like artificial intelligence. Except that it simply hid another human player within itself.
Zpxjo TIL The "Great Geomagnetic Storm" of 1859 disrupted most telegraph communications worldwide. But a line between Boston and Portland was able to communicate for almost 2 hours without using external power- due to it's alignment with the geomagnetically induced current produced by the event.
7n0b TIL that after his execution, Sir Walter Raleigh’s wife had his head embalmed and carried it around with her for the rest of her life
M0K8 TIL in the original Peter Pan book, he killed the Lost Boys when they got too old.