› added 4 months ago

25

TIL that Clifford Johnson, the most severely burned survivor of 1942's horrific Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire in Boston, underwent several hundred operations. He married his nurse and returned home to Missouri. Years later, he burned to death in a fiery automobile crash.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

wXl1 TIL that Dell OptiPlex PCs sold from 2002 to 2005 had a failure rate of 97% over a three-year period according to a Dell study. They were subsequently sued over this matter because employees knew they were likely to break.
MeQja TIL that the 'Baphomet Sigil' aka the pentagram with the goat in it is actually trademarked by the church of satan
pX5A TIL a town in Florida was named Frostproof as a marketing plot to claim that the town would never have a citrus frost. Less than two years after its founding a frost killed most of the citrus in town.
p8EKe TIL by the late 90s the buses in Belgrade were in such bad condition that one passenger died after falling through the rusted floor of a bus and being crushed by a wheel.
OoPre TIL of the Great American Horse Race of 1976 - a 3,500 mile long race with over 100 contenders mainly riding thoroughbred stallions. The winner ended up being Lord Fauntleroy, a mule ridden by a teenager, who beat the second place finisher by nearly 10 hours.