› added 11 years ago

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TIL The Candy Companies lobbied to extend Daylight Savings Time to increase the time kids can trick or treat on Halloween

Read more cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com

via reddit.com

P1gEg TIL that during WWII, a dentist came up with 'Project X-Ray,' strapping incendiary bombs onto bats to start fires in Japanese cities. However, the plan failed due to difficulties in training the bats and lack of military funding. Development ceased in 1944.
9mYG TIL of David Kootook, a 14 year old Inuit boy who survived for 23 days in -40 degree weather after a plane crash in the Arctic. He refused offers by the pilot to eat the body of a fellow passenger and died of starvation 23 days later. Upon rescue, the pilot said “Welcome to the camp of a cannibal.”
eL1b TIL that early one morning in 2014 a Starbucks drive-thru customer decided to pay for the next customer’s order, which ignited an 11 hour long pay-it-forward chain that lasted from 7 a.m. and ended at 6 p.m. later that evening when customer No. 379 declined to participate.
E1oLx TIL that after a horse ran into No Man's Land during World War I and got shot, French soldiers decided to replace it with a fake papier-mache horse with a sniper inside. He also had a telephone wire so he could message back to the trenches on enemy movement. The ploy was discovered after three days.
x900 TIL that Stalin tried to kill Yugoslavian leader Tito 22 times. Tito then wrote a letter in reply saying: “Stop sending people to kill me. If you don’t stop sending killers, I’ll send one to Moscow, and I won’t have to send a second.”