› added 11 years ago

150

TIL during WW2, German soldiers disguised themselves as Americans in order to cause confusion among Allied troops. The paranoia was so great that at one point British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery had the tires of his car shot out, was dragged out of the car, and was detained in a barn for hours.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

mjOy TIL: A Dutch company plans on sending 4 individuals to Mars to inhabit and reproduce on the red planet. Over 200,000 people applied. Only kicker, they can never return.
mxAo TIL There is a verifiable population of kangaroos living in the wild in the township of Émancé, about an hour outside of Paris.[2] The kangaroos are descended from a breeding population which escaped during a botched burglary attempt at an animal park in the 1970s.
PYMaJ TIL how the UK military recruiter mistook "cryptogamist" (algae expert) for "cryptogramist" and sent Geoffrey Tandy to join the code breakers; he wasn't so useful until captured German papers arrived water-logged; with his expertise they salvaged them, cracked the code, and hastened the victory.
OEnR TIL that in 1944, the Dodgers, Giants, and Yankees played a “tri-cornered game,” which consisted of all three teams competing against each other and rotating between fielding, batting, and resting.
KYAR TIL that during a duel-related brawl, Jim Bowie got shot, pistol-whipped so hard the gun broke, and impaled with a sword cane. With the sword still in his chest, he disemboweled his attacker before getting shot and stabbed again by someone else. He lived and went on to fight at the Alamo.