› added 10 years ago

113

TIL that Wisconsin’s only pirate once got the crew of an entire ship drunk then proceeded to throw them all over board. He then took the ship to Chicago and sold all the cargo.

Read more m.wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

5VVnr TIL that in Australia's worst aircraft crash no Australians died. In 1943 the crash of a USAAF B17 Flying Fortress took the lives of 40 US servicemen leaving only one survivor. No other aviation incident in Australia before or since has cost more lives.
b96j7 TIL in 2015 James McElvar, a Scotsman, decided to wear all the clothes from his bag (12 layers of clothing!) during a flight to avoid taking the bag and paying a £45 baggage fee. He fell ill during the flight; paramedics said he was "lucky to be alive".
grjQA TIL That many competitive Scrabble players quit playing competitively after hundreds of “offensive” words were banned, including racial slurs, sexuality and gender insults.
JLNQ TIL In May 1997, Mattel introduced Share a Smile Becky, a doll in a pink wheelchair. A 17-year-old high school student with cerebral palsy pointed out the doll wouldn’t fit in the elevator of Barbie’s Dream House. Mattel announced it would redesign the house in the future to accommodate the doll.
BgJ7L TIL that the volcanic destruction of Pompeii didn't kill everyone; archeologists now believe most of the population survived, based on the lack of carts, horses, ships and valuables in the ruins; they've also found later inscriptions with Pompeiian family names in nearby cities