› added 8 years ago

156

TIL that in Switzerland, one of the most neutral countries in the world, when you turn 20, you are required to undergo 18 weeks of mandatory military training.

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KxG TIL there is a MI6 subreddit and it’s set to private
7rL4P TIL in 1998 a burglar stole a priceless diamond ornament originally belonging to empress Elisabeth of Austria, replacing it with a gift shop replica. Newspapers covered up the theft by claiming it had been speedily recovered and the fake remained on display for 10 years.
X0ABX TIL King Louis XI plotted to kill a court astrologer who correctly predicted a death in his court fearing he'd done it himself. Before giving his guards the signal he asked if he knew when he'd die and the astrologer responded "I shall die just three days before your Majesty." He lived a full life.
8aAgP TIL Less than a year before Ernest Hemingway killed himself with a shotgun, he became paranoid and thought the FBI was following him. It later turned out that head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, had, in fact, gotten an agent to watch Hemingway in Havana, Cuba, in the 1950s.
xVDWo TIL Stephen Hawking saw a future in which the rich would use genetic engineering to make themselves smarter, more disease resistant and likely to live longer. “Once such superhumans appear, there will be significant political problems with unimproved humans, who won’t be able to compete", he wrote.