› added 8 years ago

578

TIL that a woman named Claire, was at a garage sale, when she decided on buying an old card table. After bargaining the price down to $25, she took it. She later found out that it was one of 6 tables left in the world by furniture makers John Seymour & Son. It later sold at an auction for $541,000.

rmgM TIL The oldest parachute design appears in an anonymous manuscript from 1470s Renaissance Italy (over 400 years before the airplane), showing a free-hanging man clutching a cross bar frame attached to a conical canopy. As a safety measure, four straps run from the ends of the rods to a waist belt.
yVnne TIL of Martin Pistorius, who was unable to move or communicate for several years, but was able to recover partially due to his hatred of Barney, reruns of which were shown in his room
AE4l TIL that Stephen King has made large charitable donations without announcing them because he was “raised firmly to believe that if you give away money and you make a big deal of it so that everybody sees it, that’s hubris. … you’re not supposed to make a big deal about it”
78NkM TIL about Rollen Stewart, the "Rainbow Man" known for wearing a rainbow wig and holding "John 3:16" signs at sports games in the '70s and '80s. Eventually he started setting off stink bombs and in 1992, took a maid hostage during a protest. A prosecutor called him "a David Koresh waiting to happen".
VR8D TIL that the battle of Chosin Reservoir in the Korean War was lost… Due to Tootsie Rolls. A codereader mistook the code for mortar shells (“snacks”, they were called), and literally sent hundreds of crates of Tootsie Rolls to the marines who were out of mortar rounds.