A little while back came the interesting news that a Brit cleaning out his chimney discovered the remains of a pigeon within.  The pigeon carcass proved extraordinary because on the remains of the pigeon’s leg was found a message holder and, within, a coded message.

The code and pigeon, it was established, were from WWII.  Experts analyzed the code but found it too difficult to crack.  They opined that without the proper code books, many of which changed daily during the war and were subsequently lost to time, there would be no way at all to decode the message.  Ever.

That is, until Gord Young, a Canadian historian, saw the code and in a whopping 17 minutes (according to the article!) cracked it.  What did he find?  Well, the article below tell you it “details the position of German troops based in Normandy”, but does not offer the actual deciphered message.  I suspect the message itself is a little too technical, but still, the article and the story are incredibly fascinating.  The full article can be found here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/17/gord-young_n_2316069.html