› added 4 years ago

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TIL about the Baedeker blitz, when the Nazis used German guidebooks to British towns (Baedeker was the Lonely Planet of the day) to select bombing targets that would demoralize the British.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

gM8Vb TIL in 897 the Catholic Church exhumed a dead pope, dressed him in papal gear and put his corpse on trial.
NXQdM TIL that in 1992, the Giant Gold Mine in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories in Canada was victim to an explosion done by an angry miner in retaliation of co-workers crossing the picket line as the mine was on strike.
mdoR TIL in 1961 the US accidentally dropped a nuclear bomb on a small town in North Carolina. It was 1 low voltage switch away from actually detonating.
jNEN TIL the Governor of New York wrote an article in 1919 warning of a “holocaust” against “six million” Jews in Europe [resubmission because TIL mods took down last one that reached the front-page because they said it was not verifiable. Article now contains JewishVirtualLibrary citation]
j8Aj TIL that in 2010 Microsoft banned a user from Xbox Live for putting Fort Gay (A real location in West Virginia) as his address. Microsoft refused to believe that Fort Gay actually existed, and eventually took an appeal from the towns Mayor David Thompson for the issue to be corrected.