› added 2 years ago

110

TIL Treskilling Yellow is the only known stamp of its kind in existence. They were supposed to be blue-green not yellow but they made a mistake in the 1850s in Sweden. It was valued at between £1.29 million and £1.73 million before the sale in 2010.

nek9b TIL that Steven Spielberg, while filming Raiders of the Lost Ark in Tunisia, avoided the dysentery that afflicted Harrison Ford & most of the cast & crew. Spielberg's secret weapon? The suitcases full of SpaghettiOs he brought with him on the shoot.
VVAp TIL that during the Falklands War, when the HMS Sheffield was sunk by Argentinian missiles, the crew members who made it into the water sang the song “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” from Monty Python’s Life of Brian while they waited for rescue.
rRmVy TIL in 1921 a group of workers in a fertilizer factory stuck dynamite in a 4.5k lbs block of hardened ammonium nitrate to loosen it up. The resulting explosion killed 500 people, destroyed 80% of the surrounding homes and ripped the roofs off of buildings 15 miles away.
GYdmE TIL the My Lai Massacre committed by US soldiers was covered up until another soldier who had heard reports of the massacre began a campaign to bring the events to light. He didn't receive a response after writing to the government and finally gave an interview to the journalist to break the story.
yQw7V TIL (PAINFULLY) that a common black and yellow wasp can sting straight through multiple layers of decent quality toilet tissue. Don't make the mistake of pitying them once they are caught like I did...