› added 12 years ago

101

TIL that Howard Hughes endowed $156 million to a gas-station owner for finding him on the side of the road and giving him a ride to Las Vegas.

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4XlXo TIL that St Chad of Mercia is jocularly suggested to be the patron saint of botched election due to the confused nature of his appointment as saint and the relation to the word chad which is the small fragment of paper left when holes are made in paper
nAZd TIL in 1873 a classic adventure novel “Around the World in 80 Days” was published in France. Six years later an American woman journalist by the pen name of Nellie Bly completed the trip with the described itinerary in 72 days with nothing more than a handbag and travel money tied around her neck.
yVA4X TIL Tower of the Americas in Texas held the record as the US's tallest observation tower from 1968 until 1996 when it was surpassed by the Stratosphere Tower. When pouring concrete, the crew almost forgot to install a pipe insert so plumbing could reach the observation deck
BaWr TIL a Greek gambler by the name of Archie Karas went on a 3-year winning streak during which he turned $50 into over $40,000,000.
8eLyG TIL that after defeating the Manchu Qing army at the Battle of Ngọc Hồi-Đống Đa, the Vietnamese King Quang Trung ordered the bodies of the enemies to be collected and put into 12 massive burial mounds. These would later be named Đống Đa Mound, and still exists today as a historic landmark in Vietnam