Germany will finally finish paying reparations for World War I on October 3, 2010

This weekend, Germany will pay the last sum of money they owe to the Allies for WWI. The last chunk of money is approximately 100 million US dollars. With giant numbers being swung around all the time in the media, the total amount of reparations might surprise you - only 40 billion US dollars. The reparation amount was set by the allies at the end of the war at the Treaty of Versailles, mainly to punish Germany for being dicks, and also to try to rebuild France and Belgium (whose infrastructure and land were heavily damaged).

As you may or may not remember, part of Hitler's platform was rejection of the Treaty of Versailles. Bitching about the ToV was instrumental in Hitler's garnering popular support for the Nazi party.

So Gratulation an Deutschland!