› added 10 years ago

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TIL the inventor of chocolate chip cookies sold the idea to Nestle in return for a lifetime supply of chocolate.

Read more inventors.about.com

via reddit.com

awBbo TIL A beggar was caught outside a mosque in Kuwait telling worshipers that he badly needed cash and that he had no home. Since it is illegal, he was arrested and police discovered he had over 500,000 Kuwaiti Dinars in his bank account ($1,650,000)
yQv4l TIL in 1981 the US claimed Vietnam had used chemical weapons on it's own people, saying over ten thousand had died from what was described as 'yellow rain'. The 'yellow rain' was analyzed and found to be harmless bee feces.
neyQY TIL: That during World War II, Winnepeg staged a Nazi takeover of the city to promote the sale of warbonds that they called "If Day."
KOkAR TIL some lab employees at CERN, the largest particle physics laboratory in the world, carried out a “prank” where they staged a human sacrifice in front of their statue of shiva
GYRw4 TIL Japanese Yakuza have a unique form of extortion known as sōkaiya. Instead of harassing small businesses for protection money, the yakuza harasses the stockholder meetings of large corporations.