› added 10 years ago

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TIL in Svalbard, there is a vault containing over 800,000 seed samples to preserve the worlds food crops in case of human or natural disaster.

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YpYLd TIL about sailors who discovered a dead German sailor during the Clipper Boat Race
yPNV TIL that gargoyles are used as waterspouts and grotesques are decorative.
jNEZa TIL that the CIA parachuted hundreds of people into North Korea throughout the 1950s to start resistance networks and, despite never hearing from most of them again, continued to parachute more in until an inquiry in the 1970s questioned the morality of such an initiative.
womR1 TIL In a single battle in a single day, one-quarter of the entire United States Army had been destroyed. It was the most decisive defeat in American history with 69% of soldiers killed and 97% casualties. It's known as St Clair's defeat and Major General St Clair resigned his commission afterwards.
Me7lA TIL A Charlie Brown Christmas essentially killed the popularity of aluminum Christmas trees single-handedly. Within two years after its release, aluminum trees were no longer regularly manufactured.