› added 6 years ago

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TIL that Mother Teresa secretly confided in friends frequently about her lack of belief in God

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via reddit.com

VMJd4 TIL of the Man in the Iron Mask. An unidentified prisoner held for 34 years, until his death in 1703, who was forced to wear a mask to ensure no one knew his true identity. His cell had multiple doors so no one could listen; if he spoke of anything other than his immediate needs he would be killed.
6EXbm TIL in 1995, China set out to return a desert bigger than France back to a flourishing ecosystem after centuries of desertification to combat dust storms, flooding and boost local economy.
e6p4 TIL: The name Cerberus is a Latinized version of the word Greek Kerberos, which is the same word used to name one of the dogs of Yama, who is the Hindu god of death. The word kerberos means spotted. Hades effectively named his Three-Headed Hellhound “Spot”
oRJ4o TIL the discoverer of the coelacanth, naturalist Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, had to fight with the taxi driver, the museum curator, the morgue director (it was summer), and the cold storage supervisor. Then the taxidermist botched the job, and the photo film fell into the mud and got destroyed.
pxlb TIL Leslie Nielsen was known for pranking people with a portable hand-controlled fart machine. His epitaph read: “Let ‘er rip”, a final reference to his favorite practical joke.