› added 9 years ago

120

TIL about operation Vegetarian, a 1942 plan by the British military to drop linseed cakes infected with anthrax on German fields where they would be eaten by cows and thus infect the civilian population that ate them, the test site in Scotland remained uninhabitable until the 1990’s

grgLD TIL that all Senators and senior members of the House, are assigned a one-room hideaway as private office. These rooms are not listed in any directory and doors are marked only by a room number. In 1945, Harry Truman learned of FDR's death while having cocktails in Sam Rayburn's hideaway.
ORn1 TIL that Transport for London has a history of giving babies born on a train/in underground stations free lifetime rail/train passes
0wx55 TIL three films featuring kids' love and fascination with baseball were released within months of each other: "The Sandlot," "Rookie of the Year," and "Little Big League." The last one was released a month before professional baseball games were suspended because the MLB players went on strike.
QJLxX TIL that risking Court Martial, Pilot Gail Halvorsen, made parachutes out of hankies to drop chocolate bars to German children during the Berlin Airlift. This eventually led to Operation Little Vittles which dropped more than 23 tons of candy to the children of a besieged West Berlin.
6y18 TIL salmon sushi isn’t originally Japanese; it was introduced to the country through a desperate marketing effort by the Norwegian fishing industry, which had too much salmon