› added 4 years ago

133

TIL that about 50,000 British criminals were "transported" to the American colonies for either 7 or 14 years as punishment in leiu of the death sentence. It ended with the American Revolution. UK jails then became overcrowded until they created the new colony of Australia and the practice restarted

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

RVB6 TIL that during the Haiti Earthquake, Israel set up a fully equipped, fully functioning hospital in Port-au-Prince. In its first week, it treated thousands of victims, delivered several children, all while IDF rescuers succeeded in rescuing two Haitians from under the destroyed buildings.
6EyZY TIL the founder of Barbie named the dolls after her kids, Barbara and Kenneth. Therefore, the real Barbie and Ken are actually brother and sister.
6wjl TIL a Russian scientist injected himself with a 3.5 million year old bacteria trapped in Siberian Permafrost ‘after successful experiments on mice and fruit flies’. He says it has made him flu proof for the past two years and gave him more energy to work longer hours.
Vd1D Sean Bean is terrified of flying. So during Lord of the Rings when the cast had to fly to remote shoot locations by helicopter, like the snowy mountains, he travelled part of the way via ski-lift and then spend two hours walking the remainder of the journey, in full Boromir costume.
kJEAm TIL that Australian golfer Robert Emond took 19 strokes to complete the par-5 first hole in the second round of the 1989 Australian Tournament Players’ Championship at Riverside Oaks.