› added 9 months ago

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TIL about “Franco’s hajj”. A program instituted by the fascist dictator of Spain General Francisco Franco to sponsor Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina in a bid to court the Islamic World. The program lasted for several decades.

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Va6k TIL Christophen Langan (IQ 190-210) was regularly beaten as a child for being smarter than his stepfather (IQ unknown). At age 12 he began weight training and at 14 threw his stepfather out of the house. Langan worked mostly labor-intensive jobs and for over 20 years, as a bouncer on Long Island.
nZW7 TIL Rabbits shouldn’t regularly eat carrots or lettuce, and that it is a myth that these foods are part of their natural diets
R7GQl TIL that all felines directly register- this means that when they walk, their back paw walks into the exact area where the front paw stepped, to minimize sound and to ensure stable footing
aw7Dy TIL that each commercial airplane in the U.S. is struck by lightning more than once every year on average.
OG0YY TIL Byzantine emperor Basil II "the Bulgar Slayer" after the battle of Kleidion divided 15,000 war prisoners into groups of 100 men, blinded 99 men in each group and left one man in each with one eye so that he could lead the others home.