› added 7 years ago

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TIL The film version of George Orwell’s book Animal Farm was secretly funded by the CIA.

Read more telegraph.co.uk

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akQ9 TIL that from 1946 to 1948, nearly 700 Guatemalans were deliberately infected by American doctors to study the effects of venereal disease. The US didn’t formally acknowledge the study or apologize till 2010.
noxP TIL there is a charity that buys up mortgages that have gone to collection for pennies on the dollar, then frees the homeowners of the debt. They’ve erased more than $14M so far!
E1eDW TIL that in 2003, Paramount Pictures planned to make a movie based on Avril Lavigne's song "Sk8r Boi". However, the project eventually ended up in development hell and was later abandoned.
Br8Jb TIL that the owner of a brand name can lost their legal protection for it if people started using it as the common or generic name for a type of product or service. This is what happened to Cellophane, Escalator, Flip Phone, Frisbee, Hovercraft, Kerosene, Sellotape, Trampoline, and Videotape.
e0NyL TIL that in the most widely circulated botany book of the 17th century Barnacle Geese were considered to be a vegetable