› added 9 years ago

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TIL that Fidel Castro had a serious obsession with anything dairy. He once tried to breed a super cow to no avail, brought the French Ambassador just to debate about cheese and the obsession was big enough for it to be the target for one of the many plots made by the CIA to kill him.

v0Rx TIL while not strictly legal, starting in the 1690s, British husbands used to sell their wives to end bad marriages. It was usually an auction announced by newspaper ad, to which the wife was led by a rope around her neck. Often the buyer was pre-arranged & the sale was a form of symbolic separation
gx4W TIL in 2007, a US Marine in Iraq befriended a stray desert dog called Nubs. After someone stabbed the dog with a screwdriver, the marine nursed him back to health, developing such a bond that when the unit left, Nubs picked up the scent and walked 70 miles through Iraqi desert warzone to be with him
l0OV TIL The cannons used in Human cannonball shows are not really cannons but catapults. Fireworks and gunpowder is used to trick people.
78x6L TIL several mental illnesses reduce life expectancy more than heavy smoking. The average reduction in life expectancy in people with bipolar disorder is between 9-20 years, it's 10-20 years for schizophrenia, and 9-24 years for drug & alcohol abuse. The reduction for heavy smokers is 8-10 years.
yOpl TIL former NFL quarterback Jon Kitna teaches high school algebra and helps turn around troubled students in what’s being called “the Kitna effect”