› added 6 years ago

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TIL Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond, devised a WWII plan to plant false info about the Allies’ next attack on a dead man, drift him at sea, and hope he’d be found by Nazi sympathizers. Operation Mincemeat worked, turning the tide for the Allies, who stormed Italy while the Nazis defended Greece.

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LQBO0 TIL The Swedish dressage team, which had originally won gold at the 1948 Olympics was disqualified because one of the teammates, Gehnäll Persson was a sergeant in the Swedish army. According to the regulations at the time, only officers and “gentlemen riders” were eligible to take part in the sport
9Yb6X TIL that the reason purple was so highly valued in the ancient world for centuries, is because the only known dye was extracted from a very rare type of sea snail. In fact, there was only one place in the world it was harvested; the Phoenician city of Tyre.
oVMK TIL that after hitting his head in the shallow end of a swimming pool, a man awoke with the condition known as aquired musical savant syndrome. He had become a great pianist without ever learning to play.
RAw1 TIL more than 100 countries around the world have constitutions that enshrine environmental rights to some degree, but only two US states do
e0LWJ TIL lemons were created by ancient humans as a hybrid of the citron and bitter orange plants