› added 6 years ago

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TIL Alan Turing's Bombe machine, built to crack Germany's Enigma-encrypted messages during WWII, was far too slow to decrypt messages until he realized that all encrypted messages ended with "Heil Hitler." They were then able to decrypt messages within hours, and change the course of the war.

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rNLJy TIL Festivus was a holiday created and celebrated by Seinfeld writer Dan O'Keefe's family as far back as 1966. In the O'Keefe family, there was no Festivus pole, but a Festivus clock that was nailed to a wall. When Dan asked his father, "Why a clock?", his father said "That's not for you to know"
4X1Ko TIL Mike Myers was emotionally needy and difficult during the filming of Wayne's World. The director attempted to calm Myers by having her daughter provide him snacks, and on one occasion he stormed off the set, upset that there was no margarine for his bagel.
R5Ny7 TIL of Cottonclads, a class of lightly armed Confederate river ships armored with cotton bales. They used sharpshooters and rams as their main weapons, dropping the gangplanks down to board Union ships. They were used effectively at the Battle of Galveston, capturing the Harriet Lane.
PYZbO TIL One Mac burger can have meat from 1000 different cows. The ground beef used to make burgers, both in fast food places and grocery stores, is made of a collection of muscle tissues.
wLrQM TIL Hugo Chávez freed thousands of violent prisoners as part of some criminal justice system reforms, resulting in a tremendous surge in crime that caused the government to no longer produce crime data