› added 10 years ago

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TIL Bruce Willis has publicly sold Girl Scout cookies for the United States armed forces. His daughter, Tallulah, sold him on the idea of buying cookies and sending them to troops in the Middle East. He did so and bought 12,000 cookies.

5B48 TIL that there’s a festival in Japan called Kanamara Matsuri where a huge statue of penis is carried through the streets of Kawasaki. This parade is for promoting awareness about STD’s and celebrating fertility, long marriages and healthy births.
b95G7 TIL During the May 1968 protests in France, the government came so close to collapsing that Charles de Gaulle fled the country while officials began burning documents, obtaining fake IDs, and planning their escapes. The prime minister was offered a gun with the advice, "You will need it."
j6eAp TIL in 1760s, Lazzaro Spallanzani demonstrated the first contraception and artificial insemination by fitting male frogs with tight-fitting taffeta pants. Fertilization occurred only when they retrieved semen that had been discharged into the pants and painted it onto the eggs.
dDYB8 TIL SpongeBob SquarePants was originally going to be called SpongeBoy Ahoy!. However, the name had to be changed because SpongeBoy was already trademarked. Creator Stephen Hillenburg chose SquarePants to emphasize the character's distinct shape and goofy personality.
e0Kdb TIL the Cryptex, the cylindrical combination vaults that hold secret messages, made famous in The Da Vinci Code, is a neologism completely invented by Dan Brown and has no historical connection to a real device of the sort.