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TIL Charles de Gaulle was not told about the D-Day landings until 2 days before as the British and French leaders did not believe the French could keep the information secret.

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8eedL TIL that there are around 1 million Racoons living in Germany. There was an attempt made in 1934 to introduce them by releasing a pair, but this attempt was seen as unsuccessful.A second population was established in eastern Germany in 1945 when 25 raccoons escaped from a fur farm after an airstrike
m1GlR TIL In the 1950’s, when General Electric opened Appliance Park in Louisville, KY, they persuaded lawmakers to bend the time zone boundary around the city so the factory would observe the same time as GE’s headquarters in Fairfield, CT.
ZpxAG TIL Legendary songwriter Jim Steinman (Bat Out of Hell) accomplished a rare feat in 1983 when Bonnie Tyler's cover of his song 'Total Eclipse of the Heart' was #1 on the charts, while #2 was Air Supply's cover of his song 'Making Love Out of Nothing at All'.
xV9PB TIL that Purgatory in the Divine Comedy (1320) is a mountain situated on the opposite end of the world to Jerusalem, and Dante and Virgil reach it by going to the centre of the Earth (via Hell) and up the other side. This is because the Medieval world, and hence Dante, knew the Earth was a sphere.
OG9L7 TIL Leon Trotsky was murdered in Mexico in 1940 via ice axe by soviet agent Ramon Mercader. After Mercader was released from prison in 1960 he was awarded the Hero of the Soviet Union medal and the Order of Lenin medal