› added 10 years ago

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TIL Field Marshall Montgomery once made a bet with Walter Bedell Smith that is if he could capture the city of Sfax by April 1943 he would receive a B17 bomber. When Monty completed his half of the bet, Smith backed out: The matter escalated all the way to Eisenhower who ensured Monty got his B17.

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lZb1 TIL John Denver nearly choked his ex-wife to death during their divorce settlement and cut their bed in half with a chainsaw. (Dude always seemed so chill.)
JVW4 TIL Alexander the Great once asked Diogenes, a homeless Greek philosopher who lived in a barrel, if there was something he could do for him. Diogenes replied “yes, get out of my sun”. Alexander left saying, “If I wasn’t Alexander, I’d like to be Diogenes.”
b6Bv4 TIL that the Italian royal family was banished from the country in 1946 and were not allowed to return until 2002.
8e7D4 TIL Despite his popularity in the west, Kublai Khan is not as popular in Mongolia as his brother Ariq Böke. While Kublai ruled by adopting Chinese principles and ruled from a Chinese palace, Ariq Böke re-embraced Mongolian culture and ruled briefly from a yurt.
D1Pjp TIL that in 2015 Jake Lloyd, the child actor who played Anakin Skywalker in Episode 1 was arrested for "reckless driving, driving without a license and resisting arrest." He engaged the county sheriff in a 25 mile high speed car chase.