› added 6 years ago

198

TIL that the Church of Scientology used espionage, front groups, private detectives, and over 2,500 lawsuits to gain tax exemption in the United States.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

PPrn TIL that “Bride Kidnapping” is a tradition in many countries, and is responsible for up to 75% of the marriages in Kyrgyzstan, although it’s illegal.
nWNdo TIL that safety concerns of the Jules Rimet Trophy during WWII led Ottorino Barassi, who was FIFA vice-president at the time, to remove the trophy from a bank and hide it in a shoebox under his bed. The trophy stayed safe under Barassi’s bed until the World Cup returned after WWII in 1950 in Brazil.
W7GaL TIL the Iraivan Temple on Kauai is the only all-granite, hand-carved Hindu temple in the West built without power tools or electricity. It is modeled after temples from ancient India. Its construction began in 1990 and completed in 2023. Less than 1% of Hawaii’s population is Hindu and on Kauai.
7rwMM TIL a 4-yr-old captive beluga whale who'd been living with belugas moved to a dolphinarium where her only companions were dolphins. In her early days with the dolphins, she made beluga "contact calls." Within 2 months, the beluga imitated dolphin whistles & dropped the beluga calls altogether.
kJAVW TIL about Phantasmagoria, a French pre-cinema horror shadow show where audiences were entertained with ghost tales, demon myths, and other stories to scare them by using shadows projected on a wall, mood lighting, and auto-suggestive narration.