› added 4 years ago

104

TIL: The 2002 Iraqi presidential referendum, according to “official statistics”, had a “100% turnout” in which every eligible voter in the country of 11.4 million, supposedly voted “yes” to continuing Saddam Hussein’s rule. Not a single vote for “no”.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

xVY8k TIL about the United States Metric Board, established in 1975 by an act of Congress to facilitate the transfer of the US to the metric system, the conversion was to be voluntary, which was not enough to effect the change, and it was disbanded by President Reagan in 1982.
aJpo TIL every company on the show “Shark Tank” used to have to give 2% royalties or 5% equity to the producers, regardless of whether a deal was made. Mark Cuban forced the producers to end that requirement, saying the “quality of the companies and entrepreneurs would decline” if it were kept
m88o TIL on average prison food is healthier than school food and is cheaper per person.
jNaOn TIL that some Inuit groups used ridicule in the form of song duels as a means of conflict resolution. Two men who had failed to resolve a conflict by other means would secretly compose derisive songs about their adversary. The whole camp gathered in a large igloo to observe the song duel.
GYOn7 TIL Mikhail Gorbachev’s “debut album” of romantic ballads was sold at auction in 2009 for £100,000 to fund research by his late wife’s foundation into childhood cancer. All of the songs, which Gorbachev sang himself, were favorites of his wife’s.