› added 10 years ago

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TIL that Anna Jarvis, the woman who founded Mother’s Day, tried to get the holiday revoked when companies began to commercialize it for profits.

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e0114 Today I learned that the CIA secretly owned a Swiss company called Crypto AG that maintained offices all over the world and sold products with secret backdoors for the US government and key allies.
9YGpm TIL the first proto-bicycle was invented because a huge volcanic eruption sent ash around the world, changed the climate, led to famine and disease, and ultimately resulted in the slaughtering of horses for food -- a new mode of transportation was needed to fill the void.
4k0gg TIL that the Association of German National Jews was a group of Jewish Germans who supported Hitler in the early 1930s hoping for assimilation, but its members were later persecuted and sent to concentration camps.
5VlXR TIL about the story of Phyllis (Alexander's wife) and Aristotle (Alexander's tutor). Phyllis allegedly seduced Aristotle, forced him to kneel on the ground and rode on him while whipping and verbally degrading him.
16pgW TIL about the Hessdalen lights: These are unexplained lights that have been observed in the Hessdalen valley in Norway since the 1940s. The lights appear as floating orbs and have been witnessed by thousands of people over the years.