› added 9 months ago

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TIL art used to be a medal competition at the Olympics between 1918 to 1948 and only stopped because most of the contestants were professionals and not the required amateurs.

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via reddit.com

oBLDr TIL: Victor Goldschmidt, the founder of modern geochemistry carried a Cyanide pill as a last resort if captured by Nazi's. When a colleague asked him to create one for him, he stated, "Cyanide is for chemists; you, being a professor of mechanical engineering, will have to use the rope."
XEAoP TIL that your standard 12 oz bear shaped jar of honey is the life work of 864 bees.
QNMJd TIL of Jonathan Wild, In 18th century London he was a thief-taker, a private individual hired to capture criminals. However he used this status to take out rivals to run his own criminal gang. He was so trusted he even got the reward for turning in a thieve from £40 to £140
PYkae TIL that John Wilkes Booth’s grave is marked by a small plain headstone in his family’s plot. Every day people show their “respect” play placing pennies on it facing downwards.
7LQZ TIL no one knows what Algeria’s intelligence chief Mohamed Mediène, reportedly the most powerful man in the country, looks like - no clear public photo of him exists