› added 13 years ago

393

TIL that when US forces invaded Afghanistan in 2001, American commandos rode horses into combat

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b69Ka TIL During Julius Caesar's siege of a Gallic fort, the Romans dug tunnels under the spring that served as the fort's water supply. The defenders, believing that the spring drying up was a sign from the gods, surrendered. Caesar spared their lives, but had their hands cut off.
6EYjY TIL: Diem, the US-backed Vietnamese president, got 605,025 votes from 450,000 voters in Saigon in 1955
0dkZL TIL that French opposition to the 2003 invasion of Iraq caused some American restaurants to rename French Fries to "Freedom fries"
R5Bb1 Today I Learned that footmen in a great house would always be called "James" or "John" regardless of what their actual name was. This was because the footmen may have a too working-class sounding name.
AN8Qo TIL that Cliff Young, a 61-year-old Australian potato farmer, shocked the world in 1983 by winning the 875 km Sydney to Melbourne Ultramarathon, reportedly without sleeping.