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TIL George Washington mandated the creation of the Contingency Fund for Foreign Intercourse, a secret program comprising 12% of the U.S. government's budget which funded clandestine intelligence gathering missions in Europe, including spies and political subversion.

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wLyoo TIL there was a petition to rename and Austrian village named Fucking. Tarsdorf municipality's mayor decided to keep the name as it had existed for 800 years and further stated that "[e]veryone here knows what it means in English, but for us Fucking is Fucking—and it's going to stay Fucking."
YK8v TIL that James Blunt sings the first line “My life is brilliant” of You’re Beautiful twice in the beginning of the song because he mistimed it. It was left in the final recordings.
0d05y TIL of the 'Azolla event', a situation in which a species of floating fern covered the Arctic Ocean ~49 million years ago; scientists suspect the fern grew so aggressively that it removed enough CO2 from the atmosphere to initiate a global ice age
E6xo TIL Cats “Headbutt” people because they make them feel safe, or they trust them.
awlEL TIL A Charlie Brown Christmas was written in several weeks, and produced on a small budget in 6 months. It was completed just 10 days before the premiere. All involved believed the special would be a disaster, with director Bill Melendez remarking after a screening, "My golly, we've killed it."