› added 4 years ago

341

TIL Gino Bartali not only won the Tour de France twice, but also saved 800 Jewish lives during WW2 by smuggling counterfeit identity papers in his bike’s handlebars.

Read more edition.cnn.com

via reddit.com

ZpygD TIL South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone were asked to write the prequel to Dumb and Dumber. In an interview with Playboy in 2000, they explained they worked on it for two years, but they were too busy with South Park to finish it
l7xeV TIL about Australian Rules Football, a rugby-esque contact sport involving an oval ball. It's played by two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground.
mxeeR TIL one species of freshwater turtle has actual flippers like a sea turtle. Called the pig-nosed turtle, it lives in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Australia. Extremely aggressive, little studied and difficult to keep in captivity, it is rarely seen in aquariums.
OomLL TIL Natives in Canada had a traditional gift giving holiday nearly identical to Christmas called Potlatch until it was outlawed for being unchristian, hundreds of natives were sent to prison for continuing to celebrate it from 1921 until the law was finally repealed in the 1950s.
XEKkD TIL passenger side mirrors were uncommon on cars for most of the 20th century.