"TIL in 2009 an orangutan in an Australian zoo aborted an "ingenious" escape plan. She short-circuited the electric fence around her enclosure by jamming a stick into the wires connected to it & then piled up debris to climb a wall. However she sat on the fence for 30 min before voluntarily returning"
"TIL James Strang, leader of a Mormon splinter-group, crowned himself "king" of his church on Beaver Island, Michigan for 6 years. His "reign" was so hated by the locals that he was assassinated in 1856. His killers were kept in an unlocked jail cell and fined $1.25"
"TIL in December 2020, GoDaddy tricked employees into thinking they had earned a bonus of $650. Employees were then told they had failed a phishing test and were required to do social engineering training. After media criticism, the company apologized to its staff, but did not offer actual bonuses."
"TIL While filming episodes of 'The Mandalorian' the production crew realized they didn't have enough Imperial Stormtrooper uniforms so they reached out to the 501st Stormtrooper Legion, a fan cosplay group, to fill out the ranks."
"TIL that Walt Disney, in 1947, gave permission to the University of Oregon to use Donald Duck's likeness as their mascot."
"TIL after the Titanic sank, the first ship sent to recover the dead bodies ran out of embalming supplies, so they decided to preserve only the bodies of first-class passengers by the need to visually identify wealthy men to resolve any disputes over large estates."
"TIL The world’s largest tomato processor, The Morning Star Company, has no bosses—employees write their own job descriptions and negotiates responsibilities and compensation with peers."
"TIL that While filming his scenes, Anakin's actor would sometimes make lightsaber noises from his mouth, which caused Lucas to stop filming and tell him "Hayden, that looks really great, but I can see your mouth moving. You don't have to do that, we add the sound effects in afterward""
"TIL that Auschwitz had a brothel (Block 24) where female prisoners were forced to have s*x with selected male inmates as part of a reward system."
"TIL Portugal fought a 13-year Colonial War to keep its African colonies long after the rest of Europe had given up theirs. Eventually the military got sick of dying in a pointless war, overthrew the dictatorship and installed a democracy"
"TIL in 2019 research found that women buy 62% of all new cars sold in the US, and in addition, women influence more than 85% of all car purchases."
"TIL James Brown's dying wish to fund scholarships for needy children was delayed for 15 years due to extensive infighting and legal battles over his ~$90 million estate, which was finally sold in 2021."
"TIL that in 1912, a boy named Bobby Dunbar went missing. Eight months later, he was found with another family who claimed that he was their son, Bruce Anderson. The Andersons didn't have the money to fight in court, so they lost custody. In 2004, DNA testing confirmed that the boy wasn’t Bobby."
"TIL that in 2013, the first known Tinder match in Antarctica happened when two researchers—one at McMurdo Station and another camping in the Dry Valleys—swiped right on each other. They were about a 45-minute helicopter ride apart."
"TIL fast food restaurants frequently use Columbus Ohio to test out new products because the demographics of the city closely resemble those of the country as a whole"
"TIL When musician Prince died, he left behind a vault containing nearly 8,000 unreleased songs but he had forgotten the combination. Measuring 6 1/2 feet tall, several feet wide, and weighing 6,000 pounds, the massive vault required a professional safecracker to break into it"
"TIL the White Star Line sent grieving Titanic families a bill—demanding a £20 “deposit” (≈£2,100 today) to ship their loved one’s body home, and saying that if they couldn’t pay, the company would simply bury the corpse in Halifax and mail them a photo of the grave."
"TIL that the Burger King chain is not allowed to use the name Burger King in Mattoon, Illinois, because there is a restaurant there that already protected the name as a “state trademark” in 1959 and defended it in court against BK."
"TIL in February 1936, Pope Pius XI recieved a mesage from Hitler congratulating him on the anniversary of his coronation. Pius' response critizied Hitler's regime with such force that Germany's foreign secretary tried to suppress the response, but Pius insisted that the message be given to Hitler."
"TIL the actor with the most on-screen kills is Samuel L. Jackson with 1,734. Completing the Top 5 are: Milla Jovovich (1,299), Jet Li (1,076), Dolph Lundgren (940), and Arnold Schwarzenegger (842)."
"TIL in 2015, 18-year-old Julian Hernandez learned he was listed in a database for missing children when he met with his h**h school guidance counselor to apply for college. This would lead to him discovering that his dad had kidnapped him from his mom when he was 5. His dad was sentenced to 4 years."
"TIL that Richard Nixon’s infamous “I am not a crook” line was not made in reference to the Watergate scandal, but rather to a separate allegation that he had committed tax fraud."
"TIL that at the time of Pope Sisinnius' election, he was so weakened by gout that he was unable to feed himself with his hands. His papacy lasted just 20 days, from January 15 until his death on February 4 of 708."
"TIL that Buzz Aldrin was known among his fellow astronauts to be very difficult to work with, to the point that Neil Armstrong was offered the chance to replace Aldrin with someone else for the Apollo 11 Moon landing. Armstrong thought it over for a day before choosing to stick with Aldrin."
"TIL that, after he killed Julius Caesar, Brutus issued coins to celebrate the assassination, which featured a bust of Brutus himself on one side and two daggers on the other"
"TIL that when you sign a Starlink contract, you agree "that no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities.""
"TIL the world's longest-reigning current monarch is also an absolute monarch. Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah has been ruling Brunei for 57 years. He's also the country's Prime Minister, Minister of Defence, Minister of Economy, Minister of Home Affairs, and Minister of Foreign Affairs."
"TIL the whistleblower of the Olympus Scandal, aka "one of the biggest and longest-running loss-hiding arrangements in Japanese corporate history", was Olympus' own CEO, Michael Christopher Woodford. He was fired after repeatedly questioning suspicious transactions and involving external auditors."
"TIL Alfred Hitchcock was jailed at the age of 6 because his father sent him to a police station with a note attached to his clothes requesting the jailing after Alfred committed some childish misdeed."
"TIL voice actor Casey Kasem known for voicing Shaggy from Scooby Doo quit the Transformers cartoon project because it depicted a Saharan kingdom named "Carbombya""
"TIL that Pope Benedict IX was the only pope to be elected more than once. He allegedly participated in wild orgies involving sodomy and bestiality and even sold the Papacy."
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I hate the hiding of these words (and others) on this site... just f***ing stupid!
I know, right? I don't come here to play 'Wheel Of Fortune.' I come here to leave insulting comments...mutherfucker!
Oh, that's not true. I meant to write 'bitch ass mutherfucker!'
I just noticed they commented out "high" in "high school".... this is getting ridiculous!!!
Why **** the word suicide?