"TIL: In 2009, two college students were jailed for refusing to pay a $16.35 mandatory tip at a Pennsylvania restaurant, citing poor service. After national attention, charges were dropped, and the case sparked widespread debate over tipping and whether it should depend on service quality."
"TIL about Philippine Airlines Flight 812. A passenger hijacked the plane and robbed the other passengers. He tried escaping using a homemade parachute, but he couldn't jump and needed a flight attendant to give him a push. He was killed after his parachute failed to open. Everyone else was unharmed."
"Today I learned that sound can be minus decibels. The quietest place on Earth is Microsoft’s anechoic chamber in Redmond, WA, USA, at -20.6 decibels. These anechoic chambers are built out of heavy concrete and brick and are mounted on springs to stop vibrations from getting in through the floor."
"TIL the liquid ban on planes wasn’t caused by 9/11 but by British MI5, who foiled a 2006 terror plot involving liquid explosives disguised as soft drinks."
"TIL: Astronaut Anne McClain was the first person to be investigated for space crime in 2019, when her estranged wife accused her of accessing her bank account while in space. Fortunately, investigators found the accusations were false and her now ex was charged with making false statements."
"TIL the Amazon river dumps so much fresh water into the Atlantic that it is possible to drink from the surface for about 200 mile offshore."
"TIL that Nickelodeon almost cancelled Hey Arnold’s Christmas episode because they thought kids wouldn't care about its portrayal of the Vietnam War. An executive revoked the decision when her nine-year-old son saw a rough cut of the episode and asked 'Mom, is that what Vietnam was all about?'."
"TIL that up to half of the current Cherokee nation can trace their lineage to a single Scottish fur trader who married into the tribe in the early 1700's."
"TIL in 2016, a man deleted his open-source Javascript package, which consisted of only 11 lines of code. Because this packaged turned out to be a dependency on major software projects, the deletion caused service disruptions across the internet."
"TIL a team of student volunteers on an archaeological dig at a site in northern France discovered a 200-year-old note left by an archaeologist who had performed an excavation of the site in 1825."
"TIL Alexander the Great had a Hindu Guru who accompanied his army on their return to Persia. After he died via self immolation the army held a drinking contest in his honor, resulting in 42 people dying from alcohol poisoning, including the winner, who drank 13 litres of unmixed wine."
"TIL that in 1907 French waiters went on strike for better pay, more time off - and the right to grow mustaches. At the time, lower-class workers were forbidden to have facial hair."
"TIL a bank clerk dozed off with his finger on the keyboard and accidentally transferred 222,222,222.22 euros instead of 64.20 euros. His supervisor did not notice the error, approved the transaction, and was fired. The next year, a German labour court ruled the supervisor was unfairly dismissed."
"TIL Stephen Hawking’s speech-generating device used a default American accent because he preferred it over a British one. Even when offered a modernized voice, he stuck with it, calling it his “trademark” and joking it made him sound more authoritative."
"TIL Ghyslain Raza (the Star Wars Kid) began getting tutored at home because the school staff asked him not to return the following year after students started to tease or mock him which they saw as bad publicity. Although, he was able to move past it and now has a law degree & is working on his PHD."
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