› added 5 years ago

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TIL that Fidel Castro, aged 14, wrote a letter to John F Kennedy to ask for 10 dollars.

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via reddit.com

NWdQ TIL that in 1902, the French, concerned with the large number of rats in Hanoi, instituted a bounty, which would be proven by showing the rat’s tail. People soon began breeding rats for their tails without killing them, causing a bubonic plague.
ekMg TIL that although Walt Disney World has four parks and more attractions, it has fewer rides than the smaller Disneyland Resort.
YpYOZ TIL that during WW2 an operation to destroy German heavy water plant (in captured Norway) had to delayed as a cooperative Norwegian caretaker was missing his spectacles, the bomb fuse was lit only after caretaker specs were found (as during the war, new eyeglasses were nearly impossible to obtain).
VMoQZ TIL As of May 2018, the smell of Play-Doh is trademarked. It is described as “a sweet, slightly musky, vanilla fragrance, with slight overtones of cherry, combined with the smell of a salted, wheat-based dough.”
wLOX8 TIL that Frank Borman, the astronaut that led the first flight around the moon, turned down the chance to actually go on a mission to land on the moon, because in his words, "To me, it wasn't worth it. It wasn't worth assuming the risks because I wasn't inclined to go pick up rocks."