› added 11 years ago

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TIL at the height of the Irish Potato Famine in 1847, almost 4,000 ships carried food from Ireland to England and Scotland while 400,000 Irish died of starvation and related diseases. The same year, a Native American tribe sent $710 to help ease the suffering.

N1ZQ TIL the cast/crew of Star Wars: A New Hope flew coach to England due to a low budget. Carrie Fisher’s mother, Debbie Reynolds, called George Lucas to complain about her daughter flying coach. Fisher took the phone from Lucas and said “Mother, I want to fly coach, will you fuck off?!” and hung up.
ARrd TIL a Minnesota woman was ordered to pay $222,000 in damages for illegally downloading 24 songs.
b9gVE TIL a terrier named Igloo traveled to both the North and South Poles in the 1920s as a companion to his human, explorer Admiral Richard Bird. He chased penguins, picked fights with the sled dogs, and had a camel-hair suit made for him to keep him warm. His headstone is shaped like an iceberg.
oR1dK TIL sales of Sunny Delight declined in the UK after one of its commercials showing a snowman turning orange was released at about the same time as news reports of a four-year-old girl's skin color turning orange due to drinking 1.5 liters a day of the product, which contained beta-carotene.
d8Zmr TIL a Nigerian woman named Efunroye Tinubu was one of the wealthiest slave traders. She defied British attempts to abolish the slave trade and there is a monument in Nigeria dedicated to her