› added 3 weeks ago

18

TIL That during WW2, there was an 'official' bribery and slush fund used to pay senior german officers amongst others. It was known as 'Konto 5' and disbursements were made at the direct orders of Hitler. By the end of the war it was paying out about 40M Reichsmarks per year.

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QNQ4E TIL that Canada supplied India its first reactor, the CIRUS, during the 1950s, exclusively for "peaceful purposes", but over the protestations of Canada, became the source of India's first nuclear warhead.
Lvnm TIL there were four mass extinction events before the one that killed the Dinosaurs. The most severe killed a staggering 97% of all species. All life on Earth today is descended from the 3% that survived.
kDO1 TIL there is an abandoned particle accelerator in Texas that was supposed to be 3 times bigger than the LHC
59lr TIL that since 2005, Staples has recycled 182 million pounds of plastic–roughly the equivalent of an aircraft carrier or 400 times the Statue of Liberty–via its printer ink and toner cartridge recycling program.
8VX4 TIL that Stranger Things was rejected 15 to 20 times by various networks before it was picked up by Netflix. Network execs had balked at the idea that the show featured four kids as the lead.