France
In 2011, France had to destroy an armored vehicle in a Libyan city. Their fix: a 300 kg concrete bomb — a casing of concrete, not explosives. No blast, no shrapnel; the GPS-guided block smashed the vehicle on impact. The USA had used the trick in Iraqi no-fly zones since the 1990s.
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Julie d'Aubigny (La Maupin), a 17th-century French swordswoman, infiltrated a convent as a novice nun to rescue her imprisoned lover. She placed a dead nun's body in her lover's bed, set the room on fire, and escaped—only to be sentenced to death by burning and flee.
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Julie d'Aubigny (La Maupin), a 17th-century French swordswoman and opera singer, defeated three noblemen in duels at a court ball after kissing a woman. Her father, a fencing instructor at Louis XIV's court, had trained her from childhood to surpass adult men.
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The myth of a short Napoleon partly stems from measurement unit confusion. His 168 cm was 5 pieds 2 pouces in French units, which the British misread as 5 feet 2 inches (158 cm). He was actually taller than the average French man of his era at 164 cm.
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The green in the Italian flag came from a newspaper error. During the French Revolution, an Italian paper reported the French tricolors blue as green. Revolutionaries adopted it, and by the time the mistake was found, green had gained its own meaning.
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After her husband's execution, French noblewoman Jeanne de Clisson became a pirate, naming her flagship "My Revenge." She attacked French ships, killing most crew but sparing a few to carry her message to the king—earning the title "Lioness of Brittany."
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