› added 3 years ago

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TIL about London's "Frost Fairs" back when the river Thames used to freeze over about once a decade. People would set up shops, pubs and ice skating rinks on a layer of ice thick enough you could walk an elephant on it. The last fair was held in 1814, that was the last time the river ever froze.

lZA7 TIL in Japan, your blood type is treated like your Zodiac sign is in the West, but they’re even more serious about it. “What’s your blood type?” is a common question to be asked, and there are even blood type horoscopes, etc.
JWeB TIL Winston Churchill found so much enjoyment and relaxation in laying bricks he even joined and paid dues in the Bricklayer’s Union. He even inquired in a letter “is there is a rule regulating the number of bricks which a man may lay a day?…and what are the restrictions on overtime?”
awvby TIL if a beta male mandrill wins a fight, it physically morphs into an alpha male over time, gaining facial coloration, bigger testicles, and the ability to breed.
BG0b TIL Mark Whalberg served 45 days for attempted murder after beating a middle-aged Vietnamese man unconscious while calling him “Vietnamese f*king sht”
oBboA TIL about Operation Mincemeat during WW2 where the British dressed up a dead body as a royal marine and placed on his person misleading evidence that the allies would invade Greece, not Sicily. The body was found by the Germans, who rerouted their resources, and the allies attacked and won Sicily