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TIL the largest Colombian "narco sub" to be decommissioned since records began in 1993 was seized in the Pacific Ocean in 2023 (3 tons of cocaine were on board). The vessel was about 100 ft long & 10 ft wide. Up to that point, the Colombian navy had seized a total of 228 drug-laden semi-submersibles

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b94LZ TIL During the Second World War, the Japanese army poisoned more than 1,000 water wells in Chinese villages to study cholera and typhus outbreaks. Japanese planes dropped plague-infested fleas over Chinese cities or distributed them by means of saboteurs in rice fields and along roads.
LkwZ TIL that Gandhi wrote a letter to “every Briton” urging them to surrender to Hitler and “Let them take possession of your beautiful island, with your many beautiful buildings.”
a8wLo TIL that stamps mimicking postage stamps but printed for promotional use by businesses, churches, political or non-profit groups are called Cinderella stamps as even though they are attractive, they are still seen as inferior by philatelists, much similar to Cinderella.
pYxpb TIL that in the United States, there are at least 17 counties, 70 towns and cities, 10 squares, 33 streets, 14 schools, a hill, a park, a river, four hotels, a mountain, and two theaters named after the Marquis de Lafayette, a French General in the American Revolutionary War.
QJ4Gk TIL Paul McCartney wrote Picasso's Last Words (Drink to Me), because Dustin Hoffman did not believe that he could write a song "about anything", so Hoffman pulled out a magazine where they saw the story about Picasso's last words and McCartney created a demo of the song and lyrics on the spot.