› added 10 months ago

31

TIL that despite being a NATO member, Iceland has not had a standing army since 1869. They have had a defense agreement with the United States since 1951, though the US has not had soldiers stationed there since 2006, and they have defense agreements with other NATO countries.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

l9rK TIL of Ignaz Semmelweis who made doctors wash their hands between autopsies and deliveries. He was later shunned by the scientific community, and beaten to death by asylum guards.
nW4pB TIL about the Council of Appointment, a government body of NY that existed from 1777-1822. It was made up of the Governor and 4 state senators, and could appoint officials which weren't provided a means of selection by the Constitution. This included cabinet members, judges, and mayors.
kJwa1 TIL that the T.V. show Archer had to re-name the characters' employer. At the start of the series the characters worked for "the International Secret Intelligence Service" (prominently called I.S.I.S. for short). When the Iraq occupation ended real world events gave the name an unwanted connotation.
b94LZ TIL During the Second World War, the Japanese army poisoned more than 1,000 water wells in Chinese villages to study cholera and typhus outbreaks. Japanese planes dropped plague-infested fleas over Chinese cities or distributed them by means of saboteurs in rice fields and along roads.
EM9V TIL If a cow loses a calf at birth, farmers skin the dead calf and make an orphan calf wear the skin so that the mother will accept it as her own