› added 9 years ago

171

TIL in WWII, the Japanese bombed Saskatchewan, Canada. The only damage was a fence.

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OGL5Y TIL that the oldest writings mentioning yogurt are attributed to Pliny the Elder, who remarked that certain "barbarous nations" knew how "to thicken the milk into a substance with an agreeable acidity".
DKdr TIL that in 2010 a Slovakian man was arrested in Ireland after bringing explosives into the country. They were planted in his luggage by Slovak authorities, who were doing a security test and forgot to remove them before he got on the plane
xMnB TIL astronomer Ptolemy thought that the gods, out of curiosity/boredom, would peer down at the earth from between the spheres; when this happened, stars would slip out of this gap, flashing towards the earth. Shooting stars meant that the gods are now paying attention to whatever you would wish for.
4XQeX TIL that everyone remembers Rembrandt by his first name, his surname was actually Van Rijn. Probably inspired by Italian masters known by their first name such as Raphael or Michelangelo, he would deliberately sign with his alone.
MeeLb TIL In 1992, Althea Garrison (R) was the first transgender person to be elected to a state legislature in the United States, but did not campaign as an openly transgender person during her race.