› added 6 years ago

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TIL of Jane Percy’s Poison Garden, which has ricin, strychnine, coca and more. The Duchess of Northumberland stated:”Children don't care how a plant cures (…) They want to know how it kills. Here we offer a new avenue to get people talking about the misuse of drugs—most of which grow in nature."

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BYwW TIL a murder case in ancient China that involved the use of a sickle was solved by testing the whole village’s sickles to see which one attracted flies in the midday sun, the culprit was identified and justice was delivered.
XbpQ TIL of Otto Skorzeny, a Lt. Colonel in Hitler’s SS who was once called “the most dangerous man in Europe” by Allied intelligence. Years after the war, Skorzeny became an agent for the Israeli Mossad and assassinated an ex-Nazi rocket scientist.
YWax TIL that Nick Frost lost his sister at an early age, his mother died from a stroke, and he lost his home. Years later while he worked as a waiter at a resteraunt, he met Simon Pegg, they became best friends, and then they made Shaun of the Dead, which kickstarted his career
BZPb TIL artist Chuck Close, renowned for his large photo-realistic portraits, suffered a stroke at age 48 which left him paralyzed from the neck down. However, he continued painting, using chunks of paper, finger prints and paint blobs to create the same photo-realism effect, just at a lower resolution.
Zp5DR TIL in 1964, a country changed names during the Olympics. It entered the Olympics as Northern Rhodesia, a British protectorate, and left as Zambia, becoming fully independent on the day of the closing ceremony. The athletes marched in the ceremony with a new placard featuring the word "Zambia".