› added 10 years ago

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TIL that Morocco was the first country to recognize the US as an independent country and during the Revolutionary War, the Sultan of Morocco promised safe passage from Barbary Pirates for all merchant American ships traveling across the Atlantic

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jNdbv TIL that the Nazi's went on an Antarctic expedition to claim it before WW2. When doing airplane surveys they had to drop weight, so they dropped boxes of metal swastikas that were supposed to be dropped all over Antarctica. So there's boxes of swastikas on the Antarctic ocean floor somewhere.
5Oa9 TIL Warren Buffet bought controlling stock of Berkshire Hathaway to fire the president because of a personal grudge. Buffett estimates this cost him $200b over 45 years in lost investments.
grMKb TIL On July 14, 1935 Penelope Powell and Graham Balcombe made what is considered to be the first cave dive. It was conducted at Wookey Hole in England. This historic site is still open to the small membership of divers belonging to the Cave Divers Group
gMYlL TIL that the GDP of London alone is more than twice that of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland combined.
8Vd4 TIL that when electricity was first used for other purposes other than lighting electricity companies charged more for non lighting electricity. This lead to people creating light bulb sockets adapters to plug in other devices like toasters.