› added 6 years ago

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TIL East Germans defected by various ways like digging long tunnels under the Berlin Wall, waiting for favorable winds and taking hot air balloons, sliding along aerial wires, flying ultralight aircraft and, in one case, driving a sports car at full speed through the basic, initial fortifications.

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VXe8 TIL not having friends has the same health risks as smoking a pack a day.
jx5Q TIL A boy who re-created his school as a map on Counter-Strike, is not permitted to graduate as it was a “terroristic threat”
p8rXp TIL about Bob Lambert, an undercover officer. He dated an activist while infiltrating her group, and even fathered a child, despite already having a wife and children. When the assignment ended, he simply vanished, leaving a two-year-old son behind. The London police paid £425,000 to avoid court.
R7Qra TIL Home Depot founder Ken Lagone and his wife donated $100,000,000 to fund free tuition for every student attending New York University's medical school
P10Nw TIL that in 1950's and 60's the Canadian government, military and the RCMP used a device called "the fruit machine" to attempt to identify homosexual men in the public service. Subjects were made to view pornography while measurements were taken of pupil diameter, perspiration and pulse.