› added 7 years ago

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TIL A 45 year old Bosnian man named Amir Vehabovic faked his death back in 2007 because he wanted to see who would attend his funeral. Only his mother attended. After this debacle, he wrote dozens of angry letters to his so-called friends and what he thought of their friendship going forward.

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yVkBV TIL in 1714, a Norwegian captain and an English captain had a 14-hour long ship fight. Afterwards, both ships were badly damaged and the Norwegian captain was running out of ammo. He sent an envoy to the English ship, asking if he could borrow some of their ammo. They said no.
MEO8 TIL some military vehicles are equipped with an multi-microphone system called a “boomerang” that can locate the direction of enemy gunfire as well as the shooter’s range and azimuth (elevation) after the first shot.
GYymQ TIL Home Alone was originally financed/produced by Warner Bros. When the budget grew from $13 million to $18 million and no confidence of success, WB dropped the film, which was then picked up by 20th Century Fox. The film grossed $476.7 million worldwide (of which $285.8 million were from America).
BARe TIL A German doctor for the mentally-ill King of Denmark, managed to become the “de facto” regent and instituted many progressive reforms between 1771 to 1772 including the abolition of torture, censorship of the press and ban of slave trade in Danish colonies. He was later executed and dismembered.
R7RZ1 TIL the 1918 flu was recreated from a victim found in the Alaskan permafrost. Monkeys infected with the flu strain had classic symptoms of the 1918 pandemic, and died from a cytokine storm - an overreaction of the immune system. This helps to understand why healthy individuals died from the flu.