› added 4 years ago

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TIL that Napoleon used to fight with one of his classmates at the Military Academy of Paris (Sidney Smith). Then at 1799 during the Siege of Acre Sidney Smith meet Napoleon again but now in battlefield, where Napoleon was defeated.

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WkRGA TIL there is a small village in Switzerland called "Chäs und Brot" (Cheese and Bread) . It's got its name in 1339, after Bernese troops ate cheese and bread there the evening before the battle of Laupen. The next day, they won decisively against the Burgundian army.
wne1 TIL Carl Sagan describes the Bermuda Triangle as a statistical fallacy. He explains, “Why is it always planes and ships that get lost? It’s because they can sink in water. If we started losing trains–if we had a Duluth Triangle in which trains began disappearing–that would be interesting.”
x4b5 TIL Violent crime in the US and Europe was at its highest in areas with the most lead pollution. Violent crime peaked 20 years after lead additives in petrol and paint were banned, before declining thereafter.
neGMb TIL honey doesn't spoil even after thousands of years, like pots of it found still preserved in Egyptian tombs. It is highly acidic and low in moisture making it inhospitable for anything that tries to grow and bees have an enzyme that leaves hydrogen peroxide as a byproduct of breaking nectar down.
5VKLk TIL Portuguese Jesuit missionaries João Cabral and Estêvão Cacella became the first Westerners to visit Bhutan and Nepal in 1627