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90

TIL in WWI shell shock was often misdiagnosed as “cowardice or lack of underlying character”. This led to more than 200 British soldiers being executed for desertion or leaving their post without authority.

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mv6o TIL In Yao Ming’s first game in Miami, the Heat passed out 8,000 fortune cookies. Yao was not angry with the promotion because he was not familiar with American stereotypes of Chinese. Yao said he had never seen a fortune cookie in China and guessed it must have been an American invention.
4Xo65 TIL that Tug of War was an Olympic sport. It was dropped after the Antwerp games in 1920 after a number of controversies.
gA44 TIL the original pledge of allegiance was completely secular. It was only in 1954, 12 years after its formal adoption, that a group of right-wing religious elements pushed for the phrase “under God” to be added, claiming it was “definitive factor in the American way of life.”
KEDG TIL in 2005 a man managed to trade a red paperclip for a house by making a series of swaps. Along the way he managed to get a musician a contract, met Alice Cooper and hosted “Saskatchewan’s biggest housewarming party, ever.”
81WP TIL that by the original definition, highly developed countries such as Switzerland and Sweden were seen as “Third World countries”