› added 4 years ago

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TIL of Operation Wrath of God, or why Israeli Mossad agents are basically the badass spies we all thought only existed in movies. Motorcycle assassinations, silencers, car bombs, the works.

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0w15y TIL about the "Vigiles" or Watchmen of Rome. Created by Caesar Augustus, they were firefighters who were also allowed to stop petty crimes while patrolling the city at night. If a magistrate found that someone had ignored the Vigiles' fire safety tips, the citizen was ordered beaten.
LprP TIL - Bitcoins were developed by an anonymous software designer who called himself Satoshi Nakamoto. In 2010 he turned over the source code and disappeared. Nakamoto is believed to be in possession of roughly one million Bitcoin. In December 2013, this was the equivalent of $1.1B
8VkG TIL Beretta is the oldest firearms manufacturer in the world - having been established in 1526 in Brescia, Italy.
epKJ TIL the mantis shrimp punches its prey with more force than a .22-caliber bullet.
jNMxN TIL: China creates so much synthetic diamonds that are identical to real diamonds that prices of diamonds are being driven down and De Beers has created a university to study how to identify "natural" and "man made" diamonds because no experts can tell the difference.