› added 3 years ago

103

TIL that the Fleetwood Mac song "The Chain" is an assembly of unused material through tape splicing.

Lk9NP TIL Mexico was the only country to protest the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany. To honor that support, there is a square in Vienna named "Mexikoplatz".
epgWb TIL Martha Gellhorn was the only woman reporter at the D-Day landings. Having been refused accreditation, she got there by stowing away in the toilet of a hospital ship until it set sail. She went ashore with medics to help bring back the wounded and reported on what she saw and heard.
QlPa TIL in 2002 the US military conducted an elaborate $250mil war game against a retired USMC Lt Gen who employed unconventional tactics like motorcycle messengers and suicide bombers, inflicting “the worst naval disaster since Pearl Harbor” and resulted in the exercise being restarted with a handicap.
VbWD TIL when negotiating with Americans in the 1850’s, the Japanese leader inflated his title from Shogun (meaning “general of the army”) to Taikun (meaning “great prince/lord”). The title then entered the English language as “Tycoon,” and was adopted as a nickname for Abraham Lincoln by his staff
OaDY TIL that in 1917 a man named H.L. Mencken, in an effort to prove the gullibility of Americans, published a completely fabricated history of the invention of the bathtub, using random facts, dates, and names. Even today, some of the facts from his story are cited in publications.