› added 6 years ago

119

TIL the end of a Ponzi scheme led to a Civil War in Albania where more than half the population had participated in various schemes.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

1aRad TIL that George Washington Carver's research into uses for peanuts was motivated by a desire to help poor sharecroppers in the South. At the time, the overproduction of cotton was depleting the soil of nutrients, and the boll weevil infestation threatened to destroy cotton crops.
XEVWE TIL that a gang of mobsters in NYC started a pizzeria called Ray's in the 1960s as a front for their drug dealing. Eventually Ray's pizza became almost as profitable as their drug dealing.
Zpjxo TIL Cunningham's law states: "The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question, it's to post the wrong answer."
OoKn6 TIL some streets in Old San Juan, PR are paved with blue cobblestones, called adoquines, and were made from the waste, or slag, that resulted from iron smelting, then cast into blocks and brought to the island as ballasts in the bottoms of 18th-century Spanish ships.
epbJb TIL Michael Caine fought in the Korean War and saw heavy combat as an infantryman before his career as an actor.