› added 4 years ago

481

TIL about Operation Mincemeat, a British deception plot to fool the Nazis into thinking that the Allies were going to invade Greece instead of Italy by planting deceptive information on a corpse on the Spanish coast with the hopes that Spain would pass it on to German Intelligence.

Read more bbc.com

via reddit.com

PYRNL TIL that a small town in Louisiana had the area code “666” for phone numbers, until enough residents complained about the reference to the devil that they finally decided to change it in 2007.
XEZpD TIL Vlad the Impaler once repelled an attempted Ottoman invasion by making a forest of wooden stakes piled high with Ottoman corpses. According to Chalkokondyles, a contemporary Greek historian, there were over 20,000 people in his "Forest of the Dead"
7rGwP TIL that Sweden experimented with a Moose cavalry in the 1700s
0dPZM TIL there is a burger shop in Memphis, TN that is using 100+ year old grease to fry their hamburgers
QN4dM TIL about the NOAA Corps, the eighth federal uniformed service, alongside the six Military services and Public Health Service. It has just 321 enlisted officers, and operates 15 ships and 10 aircraft.