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TIL a woman in France accidentally received a phone bill of €11,721,000,000,000,000 (million billion). This was 5000x the GDP of France at the time. It took several days of wrangling before the phone company finally admitted it was a mistake and she owed just €117.21. They let her off.

Read more theguardian.com

via reddit.com

DQ1PD TIL a man named John Darwin faked his death at sea for life insurance money and hid next door to his family home whilst he was presumed dead
rRQa1 TIL that the Royal Navy made a daily issue of rum to its sailors until 31 Jul 1970. The issue was a tot, "only" 1/8 of a pint of rum, daily and it was mixed with water to make "grog" to make it palatable. Tots are still issued on special occasions, such as the Queen's Jubilees and Royal births.
xVg9b TIL that while filming There Will Be Blood, the director Paul Thomas Anderson tested the pyrotechnical effects of an oil fire, causing an enormous amount of smoke to intrude on the nearby set of No Country For Old Men, filming of No Country For Old men had to be delayed for a day because of this.
4X0P6 TIL that our solar system's planet configuration is quite unusual and that it is more common for extrasolar planetary systems to have larger planets close to their suns, as opposed to our solar system which has small terrestial planets closer in, followed by the gas giants further away
b6DBp TIL that some studies suggest that patients with a history of allergy may have an increased rate of suicide and that seasonal spring peaks in aeroallergens are associated with seasonal spring peaks in suicide.