› added 2 months ago

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TIL that Spanish dollars, also known as pieces of eight (of pirate fame), were legal tender in the United States until 1857.

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Eep TIL a British woman with severe Tourettes Syndrome owns a website where she records her own favorite vocal tics, and asks people to illustrate their favorites. Examples: “Batman breast fed my mum,” and “Roman velociraptor training scheme, artichoke speaking.”
v1aK8 TIL that Americans threw $8.5m worth of silver coins into the sea before the fall of the Philippines. American and Filipino POW divers were coerced by the Japanese to recover it but they sabotaged the operation by secretly appropriating some portions of the haul to fund the Philippine Resistance.
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xVON5 TIL in the final years of World War II, Italian businessman Giorgio Perlasca risked his life by posing as a Spanish diplomat in order to save more than 5,000 Hungarian Jews from the Holocaust. Perlasca, a non-Jew, has been honored for his heroism, courage, and compassion by several nations
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