› added 8 months ago

26

TIL in 1906 con man Wilhelm Voigt posed as a Prussian military officer and took a group of troops by train to the town of Köpenick, arresting the mayor and stealing 4000 German marks. He was viewed as a folk hero and the Kaiser later pardoned him. A statue of him stands outside the city hall.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

oRwGR TIL the Olympic torch relay was first used in 1936 Berlin. Hitler saw the link with the ancient Games as a way to illustrate that classical Greece was an Aryan forerunner of the Third Reich. The torch relay idea was originally devised by Jewish archaeologist & sports official, Alfred Schiff.
R7mmw TIL The 3 Stooges shot a pilot called Jerks of All Trades in 1949 intended as a weekly sitcom where the Stooges would try a different job/business every week. Columbia Pictures claiming the TV series would compete with their two-reels threatened to cancel their contract so the show was abandoned.
Z8nZv TIL an early script of Disney's Aladdin included a plotline with his mother and a song entitled 'Proud of Your Boy,' about how Aladdin was going to turn his life around and make his mother proud. It was cut from the movie as the story developed, but the song returned for the Broadway musical.
R5R86 TIL of Alyoshenka, a prematurely born female baby so highly deformed that the fetus is believed to be of extraterrestrial origin (or from fall-out from the 1957 Kyshtym Disaster). The body was given up for DNA testing and went missing (photos and video remains).
GxG4 TIL Disney considered creating a park called “Shadowland” or “Dark Kingdom” dedicated to villains.