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TIL when Christopher Columbus landed in Lisbon after his first voyage, Portuguese authorities demanded a report of his travels. Columbus refused and sent a letter full of misinformation to the king of Spain so that Portugal wouldn't get a headstart on invading the Americas if it was intercepted.

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KOaEa TIL about the soldier who defected from North Korea in 2017. Meet Oh Chong-song. He made his escape by car, but had to ditch it and run after he crashed it at the Demarcation Line. He sustained five gunshot wounds and survived to tell the tale when he got airlifted to a nearby hospital.
QJB0e TIL In the 2002 movie "The Time Machine", by 2030, people have established a large Moon base, and ads are touting lunar resorts, which will be created by detonating 20-megaton hydrogen bombs to create huge spherical caverns
RkO7 TIL that there is a hidden spy room at an AT&T building in downtown San Francisco that splits all incoming communications traffic, copying this information to the NSA. This room has been operational since at least 2003 and has been publicly known to exist since 2006.
KOpXG TIL a portrait by Gustav Klimt commissioned by the sitter's husband, Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, was stolen by the Nazis in 1941. In the 90s, his niece launched a successful legal campaign to have the painting returned to the family. She then sold it for $135 million, at the time a record for a painting.
neoJr TIL when Alfred Hitchcock got the rights to the novel that originated 'Psycho' he bought all copies to keep the plot twists under wraps