› added 12 years ago

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TIL that in 1909 Sir Winston Churchill tried to enact the People’s Budget, based on the economic philosophy of Henry George. The People’s Budget sought to redistribute wealth and implement a land tax. In 1908, approximately 66% of the capital wealth was owned by 1.4% of all families in the UK.

neJoG TIL about Bing, a military dog who parachuted over Normandy on D-Day. He was coaxed with meat to drop out of the plane, and landed in a tree. He also took part in the crossing of the Rhine, and survived the war. He was given the Dickin Medal (animal version of Victoria Cross) for his actions.
e0kw6 TIL that tumbleweeds are not actually native to North America, but Russia. While they are a quintessential image of the American West, tumbleweeds arrived from Russia in 1870, and are known to be invasive, often "driving ranchers out of their homes through sheer abundance."
9wQ1B TIL in December of 1996, a crime novelist was found hanged by a noose from his Chicago office window. Although officially ruled to be suicide, several items were found on him including a bulletproof vest, brass knuckles, mace and an unfinished novel that oddly contained a similar suicide scene.
E11Vp If you leave your body to science, you may also be donating to commerce: Cadavers and body parts are sold in a thriving, unregulated market where abuses abound.
yVYpM TIL that Henryk Siwiak was killed on a street of Brooklyn shortly before midnight. He is the only victim on the list of murders in New York on September 11, 2001, since the city does not include the deaths from the 9/11 attacks in its official crime statistics. His murder has never been solved.