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TIL during WW2 the British maintained an entirely fictional army, the 4th Army, that they successfully used to draw German forces away from invasion targets on multiple occasions, including the Normandy landings

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9YeDG TIL of a £4m art heist Manchester in 2003 , including a Van Gogh painting. It is believed the culprit tipped off the police and revealed the location of the stolen artwork. Stating that his intentions were not to steal , but to highlight woeful security.
pYZ0G TIL Farrah Fawcett's iconic poster sold a record 12 million copies.
awgYA TIL that when Australian beer companies learned that their bottles were having an observable impact on the jewel beetle population—because male beetles were confusing the "stubbies" for females, and ended up dying in the hot Australian sun, leaving no heirs—the companies changed their beer bottles.
Mw8m TIL astronauts don’t float because they’ve escaped Earth’s gravity (they still experience 90% of Earth’s gravity), but because they are in free fall, constantly falling back to Earth
e0KYk TIL of the "poison squad": a group of young government employees in the early 1900s who, in order to test the safety of common food additives of the time, purposely ate ingredients including formaldehyde (embalming fluid) and borax (laundry detergent). Their work led to food labeling requirements.