› added 10 years ago

91

TIL that the Confederacy planned to conquer Latin America after a Southern victory in the Civil War.

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8a5xa TIL about California nut crime, which refers to the organised theft of nuts from the state - shipments of which can make up to $500,000. With California producing 80% of the world's almonds, almond theft is particularly lucrative and has been linked to the funding of Pakistani terror groups.
8aKgb TIL Quarantine is from Italian 'quaranta giorni', meaning "forty days", used in 14th-15th-century Venetian dialect and designating the period that all ships were required to be isolated before passengers and crew could go ashore during the Black Death plague epidemic
OGeba TIL St. Patrick's day originally was celebrated with blue. George III needed to create a new order of chivalry for the kingdom of Ireland and needed a color for it. The Order of the Garter for the previous Kingdom of England already used a dark blue, so a lighter blue was used. It changed in ~1800.
JQ9Q TIL, in India, it is illegal to know the sex of the child before its birth!
9wL77 TIL: Ducks have ballistic penises and corkscrew vaginas