› added 5 years ago

402

TIL that Stalin, while in his mid 30s, had an affair with a 13 year old girl and got her pregnant twice.

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d8WD9 TIL of the "Brussels effect", which is when EU laws end up raising the standards of regulations worldwide, simply because the EU market is so massive and it's less of a hassle for businesses to just fully adopt EU standards even in non-EU countries
grmDD TIL the Ball corporation, famous for their mason jars, became a defense manufacturer in aerospace engineering. Their products have been used on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and the James Webb Space Telescope among other projects. They no longer directly produce glass jars.
oBRRA TIL the United States originally planned to build a canal through Nicaragua before taking over the French canal project in Panama
57PD TIL that Axl Rose first heard the famous lines from Welcome to the Jungle (“DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE?” “YOU’RE IN THE JUNGLE, BABY!” “YOU’RE GONNA DIE!”) from an old guy in NYC when he hitchhiked there as a young man
MeNR0 TIL during WW2, the Nazis fell for a plot, masterminded by James Bond author Ian Fleming to pass off a dead tramp as an officer carrying secret documents, to convince the Germans to divert troops from Sicily ahead of the successful Allied invasion of the island.