› added 11 years ago

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TIL that when Frederick the Great banned coffee in Prussia in 1777, saying beer was superior for “breakfast drinking,” people started drinking a coffee substitute called “Muckefuck.”

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XE4g6 TIL in 1982, the CIA successfully tricked the Soviet Union into stealing sabotaged software that oversaw pump valves in gas lines. The CIA used it to close off a massive Soviet gas line, leading to a massive pressure build up and “the most monumental non-nuclear explosion ever seen from space.”
99WG TIL that in 1982, Wisconsin (of all states) became the very first state in the U.S. to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. Not only that, the law was signed by a Republican governor, who said “there is nothing more private or intimate than those who you live with and who you love.”
R5va9 TIL the Parthenon in Centennial Park, Nashville, Tennessee, is a full-scale replica of the original Parthenon in Athens, Greece. It was designed by architect William Crawford Smith and built in 1897 as part of the Tennessee Centennial Exposition.
5Y98k TIL that in January 2014, seven-year-old Charlotte Benjamin sent a handwritten letter to Lego complaining there were "more Lego boy people and barely any Lego girls". In June 2014, Lego announced a new "Research Institute" collection featuring female scientists which sold out within a week.
9YKbB TIL Queen Margrethe II of Denmark is a big Lord of the Rings fan, and under the pseudonym ‘Ingahild Grathmer’ helped to illustrate the danish version of the book