› added 5 years ago

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TIL of Jack Barsky, a former KGB spy who was sent to work undercover in the USA. He quit his profession by lying to his handlers that he had AIDS. They cut him off as they were afraid of STDs spreading in the Soviet Union. Barsky never returned to Russia.

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4XO8X TIL that Henry IV demanded a ransom of 150,000 marks for the release of Richard the Lionheart. Richard's brother John and the King of France offered 80,000 marks to keep him imprisoned.
6EkKJ TIL that Napoleon was once interested in considering a submarine as a weapon in his military arsenal to combat ships. When it came time to look at the Nautilus, designed by American inventor Robert Fulton, Napoleon decided that Fulton was a swindler and a charlatan after learning the vessel leaked.
BPeD TIL 3.4 million copies of the animated Disney movie, The Rescuers, was recalled in 1999 because it contained two frames where there was a naked woman in the background.
N78mN TIL that it's possible to weld wood by pressing two pieces together while one is vibrating at a high frequency
ADyJx TIL that when King Leopold II of Belgium personally acquired the "Congo Free State" in 1885, it was 76 times the size of Belgium. He claimed the land at the 1884-1885 Berlin conference promising to improve the lives of the locals but ended up enslaving them to gather ivory and natural rubber.