› added 1 year ago

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TIL that the Volga Germans refused to eat tomatoes, prior to becoming "Americanized", on account of tomatoes being a relative of the poisonous nightshade plant.

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oBgO8 TIL China's surveillance is named SKYNET
epml6 TIL when the US government began to arrange prisoner exchanges with Japan during WWII it found that less than 10% of the people on Japan's list wanted to be repatriated. It then forged an agreement with 15 Latin American countries to ship their ethnic Japanese to the USA to expand its hostage pool
v1K5B TIL that a German in the 17th century had thousands of liters of urine in his cellar: He originally wanted to create the philosopher's stone, but accidentally discovered phosphorus instead, when boiling said urine.
NkPE TIL the UK is the only country not required to name itself on its postage stamps.
Wk9eo TIL that the jesus nut, in some helicopter designs, is the single nut that holds the helicopters rotors to the body of the air craft. The term came around in the Vietnam War, one of the first conflicts to make use of helicopters.