1002 - The Tilde Rebellion (lazy monks wanted a shorter way to copy parchments - LOL) 1844 - The Cincinnati Tilde Skirmish (Cincinnati Pete accused of selling pirated tildes; his gang shot up the town and, accidentally, Pete) 2014 - The Great Tilde Heist (2.4 million tildes were stolen from a old printing museum; still no arrests despite the $500,000 reward)
For the first two, I would surmise you slept through history classes. As for that last one... let's just say your "obsessive" tilde fetish bears close scrutiny.
Humour aside, tildes were used to indicate contractions in the Middle Ages, to save expensive vellum and ink. For example, the commonly used words anno domini were frequently abbreviated to A° Dñi, with an elevated terminal and a contraction mark placed over the "n", such a mark could denote the omission of one letter or several. The Domesday Book, commissioned by Bill the Bastard, aka King William I of England, is highly abbreviated in this fashion.
Slartibartfast 