› added 5 years ago

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TIL that in a legal battle after the September 11th attacks, the leaseholder of the WTC claimed that he was owed double insurance payments, as each attack was a separate event, but lost in court, in which the jury decided it was actually one attack

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via reddit.com

0wZE1 TIL Impalement (Execution by a slowly sliding down a pole inserted through the rectum or vagina over the course of days) was used as recently as the Armenian Genocide (~1915) by The Young Turks
V48G TIL of “fagging”, a practice in British private schools where younger students were required to act as personal servants to senior students (the fag-masters). Sexual abuse was rampant in this system.
KO1dw TIL the Jordache jeans company, whose product line was popular in the 1980s has now diversified into real estate, hotel chains and an airline among other things
6nVX TIL L. Ron Hubbard won the Ig Nobel Prize (an award for achievements that make people laugh) for his book Dianetics, a canonical text in Scientology often referred to as “Book One.”
D1p0p TIL that the English name for the "bear" meaning "the brown one" originated as a taboo avoidance. It was feared that if the original word for bear (arkto) was spoken, it would cause the animal to appear.