› added 10 years ago

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TIL that the Nazi party tried to turn Christmas into a nonreligious holiday celebrating the coming of Hitler, with Saint Nicholas replaced by Odin the “Solstice Man” and swastikas on top of Christmas trees.

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awLZ TIL an Australian journalist was kidnapped by Iraqi insurgents, but was released 24 hours later after the Iraqi insurgents used Google to verify that he’s journalist.
kJdoe TIL that the Talyllyn Railway was the world’s first railway to be preserved as a heritage railway.
La8d TIL when he was 7, Vin Diesel broke into a New York theater with his brother in order to vandalize it. When the pair was caught, instead of calling the police, the artistic director offered them roles in an upcoming show, therefore starting Diesel’s acting career
b6raN TIL There was a 26-year-old founder of the Farm Bank game (Ciftlik Bank in Turkish), Mehmet Aydin, who fled the country after scamming tens of thousands of people who invested in the game out of pocket for more than $100,000,000.
KO9W6 TIL That Salvadore Dali was known to avoid paying tabs at restaurants by drawing on the checks he wrote. His theory was the restaurant would never want to cash such a valuable piece of art