› added 6 years ago

203

TIL while the last proper successful invasion of England was in 1066, there was a brief period in 1797 when a small French force landed on the beaches. They ended up drinking and eating with the locals before, 2 days later, they got so drunk they had little choice but to surrender.

l7MDB TIL there is a volcano on Mars that is 2.5 times as tall as Mount Everest and about the diameter of France
4kB96 TIL in the 1950s and 1960s trucks with fogging machines that sprayed DDT would be driven through American streets to kill mosquitoes and children would run behind the trucks to play in the thick fog that was created. In 1972, DDT was banned in the United States.
VJMG TIL Stephen Fry was on a tour by the church of latter day saints when the tour guide said ‘in the afterlife all families will be reunited’. He replied 'And what happens if you’ve been good’. He was expelled from the tour.
grEv8 TIL that the resident cat at 10 Downing Street is called the Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office. The cats were found to be subject to partisanship in a study - the cat was liked more when voters were told that the ownership of the cat matches their political compass.
nWoYW TIL about Pokémon's Porygon episode which featured a series of rapidly alternating red and blue frames that provoked epileptic seizures in hundreds of children (685 viewers – 310 boys and 375 girls). As a result of the incident, the Pokémon anime went into a four-month hiatus.