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TIL: The most successful intelligence operation in the Cold War; emptying supplies of Soviet Union toilet paper, forcing them to use documents, and retrieving these documents after use.

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9Yl8G TIL of St. Maria Skobtsova, an ex-revolutionary, twice married, smoking nun that helped forge baptismal certificates for Parisian Jews; she was discovered by the Gestapo, and died at Ravensbruck on Holy Saturday, 1945.
8a7w8 TIL Foucault put forward the view that the homosexual category did not exist until the 19th century. Although same sex relations have been practiced throughout history, people who practised homosexuality were not classified as homosexuals, and did not think of themselves in terms of sexuality.
Gm4j TIL Google Images was created in response to Jennifer Lopez wearing a Versace dress to the Grammy’s in 2000, which subsequently resulted in Google’s “most popular search query” they had seen to date: Jennifer Lopez’s green dress.
QNDbk TIL: There are "sniffer bees" that can be trained to sniff out various substances, including explosives, illegal drugs, and diseases in humans. Their sense of smell is so acute, they can match sniffer dogs in detection skills. However, each bee can only be trained to recognize one specific scent.
1aRbW TIL Zoroastrian funerals involve a ritual called sagdid (dog-sight). A dog was brought in before the body. If the dog stares steadily at the body, the person is still alive. If it doesn't look at the body, death is confirmed. This was useful in ensuring that a coma was not being mistaken for death.