› added 6 years ago

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TIL in 1975, a Soviet naval officer led a mutiny onboard a frigate with the aim of toppling the government of Brezhnev. It failed after a standoff with half of the Soviet Baltic fleet, but an article about it inspired an insurance salesman named Tom Clancy to write his book, The Hunt for Red October

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Kk9 TIL there is a completely uninhabited village in North Korea built solely for propaganda, with dozens of empty buildings.
nedkW TIL about The Battle for Castle Itter, near the end of WWII, which saw US soldiers, French POWs, and renegade German soldiers fighting on the same side to hold the castle against an SS tank division.
16n4W TIL that in 1978, Vietnam veteran and US Army Lieutenant Colonel Jim Channon proposed the formation of the 1st Earth Battalion; a New Age revamp of the American military, trained in psychic powers and pacifism. Channon's ideas later inspired the book and movie "The Men Who Stare at Goats".
7rgrO TIL that Subway chicken was DNA tested by a Canadian firm and was found to only contain about 50% chicken, with much of the rest being soy filler.
7Lvp TIL that Volvo engineer Niels Bohlin invented the three point seatbelt, but Volvo gave away the patent to other manufacturers because it had more value as a free life saving tool.