› added 6 years ago

164

TIL that, barred from working by the Nazis as a Jewish actor, Leon Reuss tricked them into celebrating him as an Aryan idol by adjusting his dialect to that of mountain farmers, growing his beard, bleaching his hair by bathing every 10 days in diluted hydrogen peroxide, & claiming to be a peasant.

Read more interesly.com

via reddit.com

xVY8k TIL about the United States Metric Board, established in 1975 by an act of Congress to facilitate the transfer of the US to the metric system, the conversion was to be voluntary, which was not enough to effect the change, and it was disbanded by President Reagan in 1982.
eYyJ TIL Operation Mockingbird was a classified CIA program spanning from the 50’s through to late 70’s intended to influence the media and create ‘a propaganda network’ of leading American journalists.
GEoj TIL that a 20 year-old book titled “Foundations of Geopolitics” outlined Russian goals to annex Ukraine, separate the UK from the rest of Europe, and foment racial and isolationist groups in the U.S.
69gMJ TIL that Michael Jordan has won 626 games without ever losing more than 2 games in a row in his 15 year NBA career. Stephen Curry is the next closest player with 326 wins.
751b TIL in 1916, the German military conducted the Judenzählung (census of Jews). Designed to confirm accusations of lack of patriotism among German Jews, the census disproved the charges. In fact, A higher % of German Jews fought in WWI than of any other ethnic, religious or political group in Germany.