› added 4 years ago

53

TIL that Mad Magazine writer Dick DeBartolo was on the staff of game show Match Game. When it was cancelled DeBartolo started writing silly and suggestive questions - which led to improved ratings and a reversal of the decision to cancel the show

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

NnyP TIL a mailman noticed a dead body on the porch of a home he was delivering mail to, dismissed it as a Halloween prop and continued on his route. It was the dead homeowner who collapsed and died coming home from work.
Y7eEv TIL that the Battle of Spioenkop, which took place in South Africa in 1900, saw Winston Churchill couriering messages to the frontlines and Mahatma Ghandi serving as a stretcher-bearer.
X0rk TIL an 18th Century pirate named Calico Jack stole a ship and ran off with another man’s wife, Anne Bonny, who dressed like a man to hide her gender. Among Jack’s crew was another woman dressed as a man, Mary Read. When captured and facing execution, both women were pregnant and were thus pardoned.
QQOa TIL Napoleon Bonaparte thought torture should be abolished because the information obtained from it is worthless.
X0Okj TIL the Sound of Music is based on a real Trapp family, and they have a lodge in Vermont