› added 11 years ago

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TIL in ancient Athens, the worlds first democracy, they had a process called ostracism, where once a year the people could vote on the politician they thought was most destructive to the democratic process. The “winner” was banished from Athens for 10 years.

XEVNE TIL Intermarche supermarkets in France offered a 70% discount on Nutella, bringing the price down from €4.50 to €1.40. This led to riots & violence in stores. One customer claimed 'They are like animals. A woman had her hair pulled, an elderly lady took a box on her head, another had a bloody hand.'
Y7BnG TIL Physical fitness was not one of the NASA requirements for astronauts landing on the moon. Astronauts had an initial thorough exam before they were accepted into the program but after that, physical fitness was up to the individual to maintain
epml6 TIL when the US government began to arrange prisoner exchanges with Japan during WWII it found that less than 10% of the people on Japan's list wanted to be repatriated. It then forged an agreement with 15 Latin American countries to ship their ethnic Japanese to the USA to expand its hostage pool
wo5K1 TIL Out of 138,000 American Soldiers buried overseas, 60,000 are buried in France, 25,000 are buried in the Philippines, 14,000 in Belgium, 12,000 in Italy, 8,000 in a Netherlands, 5,000 in Luxembourg, 5,000 in Panama. 1000’s more in England, Tunisia, Mexico.
5Y0wP TIL about the ancient Hambach Forest of which only 10 % remains. The remaining part is planned to be cleared to make way for the surface coal mine operation in the area. There have been ongoing protests and occupations in the forest to prevent this since 2012