› added 6 years ago

95

TIL that Charles Ponzi, the creator of the Ponzi scheme, received Christmas cards from some of his investors and requests to invest money while he was in prison

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b4xj TIL Clarence Elkins was denied an appeal on rape/murder charges despite proving the DNA didn’t match. He then did his own investigation, and found the real killer. The prosecutor still refused to overturn the conviction until the atty general publicly shamed him.
OoV8e TIL a New Jersey man was once charged $3,750 for a bottle of wine after the waitress recommended the one that was "thirty-seven fifty."
yJO8 TIL while filming Dumb and Dumber, Jim Carrey stayed in the Stanley Hotel (where The Shining was filmed) for a night and requested to be in room 237. About three hours after he went to sleep, he came running out of the room and left the hotel. To this day, he hasn’t told anybody why.
LYkm TIL Black Americans serving in WWII under the French were treated with respect. However it concerned the US military so much it led to a directive stating: They MUST NOT eat with them, seek to talk, meet with, nor should they commend the black troops, particularly in the presence of white Americans.
vP5GB TIL: The original penguins or Great Auk was a species driven to extinction by man. Scientists in the 1600s noticed and tried to prevent it through numerous laws, it failed. In 1840 the last auk in Britain was beaten to death with sticks as the men thought it was a witch causing storms.