› added 4 years ago

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TIL about Jerome Kerviel who was fined $6.7 billion for unauthorized stock trading, making him the most indebted man in the world

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Jojm TIL of the 1902 Mt Pelée eruption which killed 30,000 island occupants leaving 3 survivors: one girl rowed to safety in a cave she played in, one man survived it and two future eruptions, and one survived by blocking the 1,000 degree ash from his prison cell with urine drenched clothing.
KO4Aa TIL although rarely used if at all, Ancient Persian Cuneiform has a block in Unicode. There's only a handful of surviving tablets in this script
e07Xk TIL Gun suppressors only reduce damage to ear drums. They do not make gunshots silent
pYwGb TIL about Walter Bonatti and Amir Mehdi, forced to spend a night on K2 without a tent because the first ascenders were afraid of being overshadowed. Bonatti upstaged them 4 years later summitting the even harder Gasherbrum IV; Mehdi was maimed by frostbite and never climbed again.
XEPQ6 TIL Contrary to popular lore, there was no epidemic of suicides in the wake of the Stock Market Crash of 1929. One contemporary reference to the myth was written by a British reporter who had been very badly burned in the market himself, the reporter’s name was Winston Churchill.