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TIL Sir Admiral "Blinker" Hall became the UK's Director of Naval Intelligence—a desk job—and played an outsize role in getting the United States into World War I because commanding ships made him seasick.

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ZwMp TIL Devil’s Breath, scopolamine, is a drug that south American criminals blow into the face of victims to turn them into compliant ‘zombies’ who will empty their bank accounts & hand over their valuables when asked, then retain no memory of any of the events later, leaving the criminals unidentified
rGp0 TIL that in 1964 an Israeli spy convinced the Syrians to plant trees near military fortifications so that their soldiers had some shelter against the sun. The Israeli’s used those trees as targeting markers ensuring a swift victory in the Six-Day War
oBKjo TIL that Russia gave the United States a memorial to the victims of 9/11
Elmd TIL that, according to the memoir of a former slave, First Lady Dolley Madison did not save the Lansdowne portrait of George Washington from the British burning it during the War of 1812. Rather, a Frenchman and a gardener saved it, while Dolley just ran off with silver.
9wMkB TIL Salem's eerie landmark, the Witch House, never housed witches. It was home to Judge Jonathan Corwin, known as "the hanging judge" from the Salem witch trials of the late 1600s, where 19 people were sentenced to death.