› added 10 years ago

66

TIL that the U.S. government produced 500,000 Purple Heart medals to prepare for the 1945 invasion of Japan. When the operation never took place, the medals were placed in storage and distributed. All military action since then (including Korea and Vietnam) still has not depleted the supply.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

wLpEY TIL the founder of the high fashion brand Gucci was named Guccio Gucci
gMeRb TIL that in 1995, a Nick Leeson single handedly bankrupted Britain's oldest merchant bank by losing $1.4 B dollars in bad trades.
VV8k TIL that due to a popular anime cartoon, thousands of raccoons were imported from North America for Japanese children to keep as pets. When the cartoon’s protagonist later released his raccoon into the wild on the show, many of the pet owners did the same, creating chaos in the ecosystem to this day
05M5 TIL that MARIO wears a Hat because Programmers at that time found it difficult to create hair movement when the character jumped.
pR8p TIL that a cats purr can promote the healing of their broken bones or torn muscles, this is due to the sound frequencies of the purr (which is around 25-150 Hertz). This can also improve their bones density.