› added 8 years ago

1173

TIL that a holocaust denial group offered $50,000 to anyone who could prove that gas chambers were used to intentionally kill people at Auschwitz. They were forced by a judge to pay that money, and an additional $40,000, to Auschwitz survivor Mel Mermelstein who provided proof of that very fact.

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160rW TIL in the late '70s and early '80s, the Soviets "bugged" IBM Selectric II typewriters in the US Embassy in Moscow so they would report what the Americans were typing by radio. We only found out when a friendly country's embassy told us it had happened to their typewriters.
B6ek TIL the Back To The Future producers regretted ending the first film with Jennifer in the car, because it required them to come up with a story that fit her in rather than a whole new adventure
lZpB TIL that when critics accused David Lee Roth of only writing songs about partying , women, and cars he realized he actually hadn’t written any songs about cars so he wrote “Panama”.
gM7E7 TIL: During the 14th century ships arriving in Venice from infected ports were required to sit at anchor for 40 days. This practice is where we get the word "quarantine" from the Italian "quaranta" meaning "forty"
OoyNY TIL that South Korea formed a covert military unit in 1968 with the intention of assassinating North Korea's leader. Unemployed youths or petty criminals were recruited and trained on an uninhabited island for 3 years. The existence of the unit was covered up until the 1990s.