› added 1 month ago

10

TIL that Emperor Frederick II of the HRE was wholly uninterested in ruling Germany, he moved the imperial capital to Palermo, in Sicily, spoke Sicilian at his court and granted more autonomy to German princes, leading to the decentralization of Germany, so that he could focus on his beloved Sicily.

Zo7B TIL that in World War Two, Finnish soldiers were told to “fire low”, as their rifles would often jerk upwards when fired. Accordingly, their battle cry was changed to “Tulta munille!” loosely translated as, “Fire at their balls!”
YpnLr TIL that during WW2, the Irish Republican Army attempted to collaborate with the Nazis, and even prepared an invasion plan to assist the German invasion of Northern Ireland.
4XyaN TIL During WWII, large corporations like Bosch and Daimler Benz, unequivocally supported goals of Hitler’s regime and its war effort in exchange for advantageous contracts, subsidies and in exchange was allowed to use slave labor from occupied countries, which accounted for one quarter of workforce
OnwL TIL that there is a table saw that automatically stops in less 1/1000th of a second when it comes in contact with flesh, and the inventor was crazy enough to test it with his finger.
d85rQ TIL Richard Kuhn was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1938 "for his work on carotenoids and vitamins". Kuhn collaborated with high-ranking Nazi officials, denounced Jewish co-workers in 1936, and is no longer considered a suitable role model by the Society of German Chemists