In the 1830s, a Greek prime minister tried to spread the potato in Greece but people weren't interested so he put armed guards in front of shipments of potatoes so people would think they were important. People then started stealing these potatoes so much that the crop spread to all of Greece.
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France’s King Louis XIV was offered biological weapons by an Italian chemist. He not only refused, but also paid the chemist an annual salary to never reveal the technology to anyone else.
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The exact cause of death and burial site of Genghis Khan is unknown, because all of the 2000 funeral guests and 800 soldiers were killed in order to preserve the secret.
16
The University of Oxford (teaching since 1096) predates the Aztec empire (1428 - 1521).
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When Charles Darwin first discovered the Galapagos Tortoises, he tried to ride them!
18
The word 'mile' is derived from the Latin word for 1,000 - the number of paces it took the average Roman!
6
In 1537, England's King Henry VII officially declared February 14th the holiday of St. Valentine's Day.
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