› added 6 years ago

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TIL of Peter Freuchen, who crossed 1,000 km of ice via dogsled, freed himself from an avalanche with a shiv made of his own feces, wrote 12+ books & was editor-in-chief of a women's magazine, escaped a Nazi prison despite having lost a leg to frostbite, and wrote/acted in an Oscar-winning film.

4X4YR TIL In almost every country the world over, Jews have faced religious persecution but India is one of the few countries where Jews were never ill-treated.In 1948, after the formation of the state of Israel, 33000 Jews migrated to Israel leaving behind around 5000 Jews in India.
EgMKW TIL Greek poet K.Karyotakis spend 10 hours trying to commit suicide by drowning at sea before giving up and deciding to shoot himself. His suicide note ends with a humorous advice to never try and drown yourself if you're a swimmer, and a promise to write down the "impressions of a drowning man"
68LY TIL that one of the main reasons WWF founder Sir Peter Scott choose a panda as the organisations logo was to minimise printing costs (needing just black and white).
yjQp TIL that in 1963, Australian authorities were alerted to an infestation of Marijuana plants growing in the Hunter Valley region. At its peak it spanned 30 square kilometers. It took 9 years to eradicate. People would walk in and out of the infestation, take weed and leave.
ADMVd TIL There was a racial underpinning to the German-Japanese alliance during WWII. The Nazis, from Hitler on down, actually viewed the history of the Japanese people as 'superior' to the German.