O la la.

Heading out.

Wait, but Vietnam’s flag doesn’t have orange?

Adam Mickiewicz was a XIX century poet born in 1798 in Zaosie (Modern day Belarus former Grand Duchy of Lithuania) most famous for his Dziady trilogy and Pan Tadeusz, because of where he was born Poland, Lithuania and Belarus claim him as their national poet.

This party is no bloody fun.

Fact: 90% of upstart rulers pay their mercenaries before they just pack up and leave for real.

Austrian born mathematician and logician Kurt Gödel found a loophole in the U.S. constitution while studying for the American citizenship test. His friends Oskar Morgenstern and Albert Einstein who accompanied him to the test advised him not to mention it, but later the examiner asked him about the government in Austria to which Gödel answered: "It was a republic, but the constitution was such that it finally was changed into a dictatorship." The examiner then told him that this can't happen in the U.S to which Gödel responded: "Oh, yes, I can prove it."

How to make Cato the Elder real happy.

At least 2.5% of East Germans were Stasi informants.

Robert wasn't the brightest of the bunch for sure.

Wait, were they for real?

Witold Pilecki was a Polish captain that got himself sent to Auschwitz, later escaped, wrote a report in 1943 about the atrocities happening at the camp. After the end of WW2 he was taken to court by the communist government and accused of spying for Germany during the war. The documents that he spent time as a prisoner at the camp were destroyed, so they couldn't be shown in court. He was executed in 1948, his resting place is unknown.

The old reliable.

CIA budget goes brrrr.

No bon appétit for you, peasant.

When UN was founded, Stalin wanted to get more seats, and thus Ukraine and Belarus were among the UN founding members as separate entities, while Russia technically didn't ever join the UN, instead occupying USSR's place (for example, upon Yugoslavia's dissolution, Serbia was forced to re-join as a new political entity).

French knights after losing to a bunch of archers they outnumbered 4 to 1.

In January 1915, polar explorer Ernest Shackleton's ship, Endurance, became icebound in the Antarctic. What happened next would become legend: Shackleton and his crew watched their ship slowly sink, survived a year and a half stranded on the ice, and eventually secured their own rescue with an 800-mile journey in an open lifeboat. Every member of the 28-man team survived.

It's been a while since we talked about Rome.

What's life in the Balkans like?