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1119

TIL the CIA sponsored exhibitions of Jackson Pollock’s work in order to globally popularize abstract expressionism and devalue socialist realism

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Me6jm TIL 'Tarantula' is derived from the name of the Italian town Taranto, home of the dance called the tarentella. During the Middle Ages the tarentella was thought to be the way to cure the bite of a particular spider. The symptoms included exhibitionism, melancholia and delirium.
neR77 TIL The German army employed large numbers of captured soviet T-34s tanks. they were designated by the Germans as Panzerkampfwagen T-34 747(r). In order to prevent recognition mistakes, large swastikas were painted on the tanks, in order to prevent attack by Axis aircraft.
W7Vp8 TIL a politician made up the U.S. state name “Idaho” after meeting a girl named Ida. He falsely claimed it was a Native American term.
eW06 TIL In the US, “Muslim women are at least as likely as Muslim men to hold a college or post-graduate degree, and Muslim women are more likely to work in a professional environment than women from most other U.S. religious groups.”
Brmrx TIL In 1972 a sun orbiting mass grazed Earth's atmosphere streaking across the North American sky before continuing in an altered orbit around the sun.