› added 10 years ago

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TIL Nigerian scammers once sold a fake airport to a major international bank for $242 million, and the scam wasn’t discovered till 3 years later.

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Y7RxG TIL Madagascar is an exporter of Beluga Sturgeon caviar
YpJgr TIL about the Battle of Saragarhi where 21 Sikh Soldiers of the British Army fought against 10,000 Afghan Tribesmen. It is considered to be one of the greatest last stands in human history.
RO7w TIL: Not only did a private US company pay for the research for the inexpensive “space pen” NASA uses, but the pen worked so well that the Soviets bought it, too.
XE0BQ TIL Christopher Columbus was stuck in Jamaica with angry natives refusing to give him food. Knowing that a lunar eclipse was going to happen, Columbus told the natives that his gods were angry for refusing him food. After the eclipse, the scared natives gave him lots of food and begged for mercy.
NX7KN TIL Shen Fu Tsong was the first recorded Chinese person to step foot in Britain. Tsong cataloged the Chinese collection in the Bodleian Library, showed the librarian how to hold Chinese books, and explained their contents. King James II had Tsong's portrait painted and hung in his bed chamber.