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TIL the My Lai Massacre committed by US soldiers was covered up until another soldier who had heard reports of the massacre began a campaign to bring the events to light. He didn't receive a response after writing to the government and finally gave an interview to the journalist to break the story.

R77oQ TIL that the Great Smog of London in 1952 was caused by using coal as the main source of heat and was responsible for the deaths of around 12,000 individuals.
kO1B7 TIL that Sega hired the mafia to kidnap a game developer’s sister to stop them from working with Nintendo. In response, the developer hired a crane to drop a Sega arcade machine in front of their headquarters and sent them a threatening letter saying that one of their employees would be next.
jNgLE TIL surrealist artist Salvador Dali had a pet anteater, delivered an art lecture wearing a full diving suit with two Russian wolfhounds at his side, and had a lifelong disgust for female genitalia after stumbling upon a picture book of venereal diseases as a child
Yp54x TIL that to promote Spinal Tap’s 1992 album, Break Like The Wind, radio stations were sent a colander labelled as "Spinal Tap Official 1992 Calendar".
R7NP4 TIL There are a billion missing years in earth's rock layers -- one theory is that Snowball Earth, where miles of ice eroded those rock layers and sent the sediment into the oceans where they were plunged back into the mantle to be recycled -- there are also no fossil layers before this period