› added 5 years ago

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TIL about the "hijacking" of the oil tanker, Brillante Virtuoso in the Gulf of Aden in 2011. There pirate attack left the ship heavily damaged and it was scrapped. The owner attempted a $100 mil insurance claim, one of the primary inspectors was killed in a car bomb, others were harassed.

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R78e1 TIL that for Japanese traffic lights blue means go! A very blue shade of green is used, green enough to satisfy international regulations. This is because historically the Japanese language only had words for black, white, red, and blue, and that green is considered a shade of blue.
jNjDE TIL Charles Ramsey was eating McDonald's when he heard screaming and saw Amanda Berry trying to escape a house. She had been kidnapped and held captive for 10 years. He called 911, helping her and two other prisoners escape. Hearing this, McDonald's gave Ramsey free food for life.
VMO7k TIL that scientists developed a plan to boost Egypt's hydroelectric capacity by using 200+ atom bombs to carve a canal between the Qattara Depression and the Mediterranean to create a vast inland sea. The proposal was rejected
0D5p TIL the USSR promoted a pseudoscientific form of agriculture that rejected genetic heritability for political reasons. Up to 3000 scientists critical of Lysenkoism were imprisoned or killed for being “bourgeois”, fascist or anti-Marxist saboteurs
mxWWv TIL that Cats the musical uses carefully crafted yak hair wigs for costumes. In 2016, they cost $2300 each and it took 40 hours or more to make a single wig. The wigs can’t be re-used. Over its 18-year run, the first Broadway production used 3247 pounds of yak hair.