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TIL the phrase ‘It’s raining cats and dogs’ originated from the tendency of dead animals to be washed away following periods of heavy rain in the filthy streets of 17th century England.

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VM6D8 TIL that between 1921 - 1976, Sweden sterilized up to 63,000 people. Teenagers as young as 15 were sterilized for inadequacies as trivial as shortsightedness or because they allegedly lacked judgment or had "no obvious concept of ethics".
eQME TIL that in 1859, an American farmer in the San Juan Islands shot a pig who was eating his potatoes, but the pig happened to belong to a British colonist. In the ensuing confrontation, 461 Americans and 14 artillery faced 5 British warships with 70 cannons and 2140 men. The only casualty was the pig
XEKer TIL when Radovan Karadžić went into hiding, he became Dr. Dabić. He lost 20 kilos. He grew a long white beard, changed his accent and was living in the open and working as a healer. He even went on TV shows without anyone knowing that he was the most wanted war criminal from the former Yugoslavia
8Pxb TIL that the single largest infiltration of the United States government in history was committed by the Church of Scientology in order to purge unfavorable records about Scientology and its founder L. Ron Hubbard.
RMdw TIL When Matthew Perry got onto the cover of People magazine for the first time ever,he sent it to one of his old teachers, Dr. Web, who said he would never amount to anything if he kept joking around all the time.