› added 1 week ago

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TIL in 2005 a typo nearly bankrupted one of Japan’s largest investment banks, Mizuho Securities. A broker mistakenly sold 610,000 shares at 1 yen each instead of 1 share at 610,000 yen. Attempts to cancel the trade failed. Mizuho lost over $225 million in minutes.

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via reddit.com

5VPZk TIL: In 2016 the BBC received more than 1000 complaints about an episode of children's TV show 'Fireman Sam', these complaints were then forwarded on to Channel 5, as the BBC had not broadcast 'Fireman Sam' since 2008.
jKkM TIL Edward Norton commented on smashing the Volkswagen Beetle in fight club by saying, “We smash it … because it seemed like the classic example of a Baby Boomer generation marketing plan that sold culture back to us.”
X0k4k TIL that the longest criminal trial in Canada was when the company responsible for Caillou committed major accounting fraud.
R7kGa TIL One of the methods used for identifying witches in the Salem Witch Trials, was to bake affected girls urine in a cake, feed it to a dog, and the controlling witch would then supposedly cry out in pain.
VBdpk TIL a slightly modified Bugatti Chiron piloted by factory test driver Andy Wallace became the first production car to surpass the 300-mph barrier when it reached a top speed of 304.77 mph (490.48 km/h) during a run on the Ehra-Lessien test track in 2019.