› added 10 years ago

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TIL billionaire J. Paul Getty refused to pay $17m ransom for his kidnapped Grandson. When the teenager’s severed ear arrived, he agreed $3m but only paid $2.2m… the maximum that would be tax deductable. He lent the other $800k to his son on the condition that he pay it back with 4% interest.

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Wko4Y TIL about Maximilian Kolbe, a Catholic priest during WW2. He was taken to Auschwitz where he later took the place of a stranger. Kolbe was starved for two weeks and then killed by an injection of carbolic acid.
e0A1D TIL about Borderlands 2 character Michael Mamaril. A Borderlands fan that died at 22 before Borderlands 2 came out. When his friends asked Gearbox if they would have Claptrap read a eulogy, they instead made a character in the game based off of Michael himself.
OGak7 TIL that over 30% of pediatric burns are from accidents involving instant ramen, according to a 10 year retrospective study at the University of Chicago Burn Center.
KOlEG TIL During World War II, the U.S. military designed a grenade to be the size and weightof a baseball, since "any young American man should be able to properly throw it."
ne9r9 TIL the idea of St. Bernard rescue dogs wearing casks of brandy comes from an 1820 British painting. In fact, though alcohol makes one feel warm, it does so by dilating blood vessels, hastening hypothermia. The idea is like "rescuing a burn victim with a keg of lighter fluid and a book of matches."