› added 5 years ago

200

TIL that Facebook's primary color is blue because Zuckerberg is red–green colorblind, a realization that occurred after a test undertaken around 2007

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N8aJ TIL King Leonidas of Sparta was 60 years old at the Battle of Thermopylae.
VBRLB TIL the last european battle of WW2 was fought by Croatian fascists against Yugoslav partisans fighting weeks after the surrender of Germany
5Y44B TIL of a "gravity train". If you could dig a tunnel through the center of the earth, a train could travel from one end to the other through force of gravity alone, coming to a gentle stop exactly at the other end.
6E4k7 TIL Helly Juell Hansen was a Norwegian captain that first produced clothes in 1877 to protect his crew against the harsh Nordic weather. His revolutionary new product infused linseed oil into cotton fabric. 141 years later, in 2018 the company was sold to Canadian Tire for $985 million.
8aoBP TIL that while working in Naval Intelligence during WW2 Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond, worked on a plan to steal an enigma machine by having British officers dress up as crashed Luftwaffe crew. The plan had the approval of Alan Turing and became the inspiration for Operation Mincemeat.