› added 11 years ago

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TIL The EU Spies On Its Citizens 30 To A Hundred Times More Often Than The US.

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pYO8Z TIL in 1962 Brendon Grimshaw bought Moyenne Island in Seychelles for £8k. He planted 16k trees on the island and bred giant Aldabra tortoises. He was the sole inhabitant of the island until his death in 2012. Instead of selling it for $50m, it was declared a national park is the world's smallest.
69BpX TIL: In Japan Christmas Eve is usually considered a romantic day for couples and can be considered the "Japanese Valentines Day". On Christmas Day they eat traditional Christmas foods such as Christmas cake (sponge cake with whip cream and strawberries) and Kentucky Fried Chicken ordered in advance
JB84 TIL that at the end of WWII, the Canadian Navy was the 3rd largest Navy in the world
X0J88 TIL Yang Liwei, China's first man in space, heard a mysterious knocking in space but it did not come from outside nor inside the spaceship. He has even tried - but failed - to recreate the sound so that experts could help him identify it
0jgy TIL During a 1978 Monday Night Football game, to fill dead air, Howard Cosell commented on a delicious new snack he was eating, thus stadium nachos went mainstream.