› added 3 years ago

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TIL that Julia Child used to work for the OSS - the predecessor to the CIA - during WWII. She was part of a team that worked on creating a shark repellent that would coat explosives aimed at German U-Boats.

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via reddit.com

W7oe9 TIL MSG occurs naturally in tomatoes and other vegetables.
JYeKQ TIL that when Indonesia's Mt. Tambora erupted in 1815, it ejected up to 51 cubic miles of pulverized rock and ash into the atmosphere. The debris blocked so much sunlight that it caused global cooling, with New England getting heavy snow into June.
w0k7 TIL When Ronald Reagan watched Back to the Future for the first time, he loved the joke about who was president in 1985 (Ronald Reagan? The Actor?) so much that he made the theater projectionist stop the film, roll it back, and play the joke again.
5BkB TIL that if the Andromeda galaxy were bright enough to be seen by the naked eye, it would appear six times larger than a full moon.
Bra0x TIL the phrase "Low Man on the Totem Pole" has come to mean the opposite of what it should; the "Low Man" on the totem pole was often the most talented and valuable part of the totem pole creation process.