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TIL during the 2008 financial crisis, Japanese bank Mitsubishi UFJ made a $9 billion investment in Morgan Stanley, to keep it from collapsing. The emergency deal was confirmed on Columbus Day, when banks are closed, so the money couldn't be wired - so Mitsubishi UFJ wrote out a $9,000,000,000 cheque

4X9vN TIL the term "Interest Convergence" wherein interests of minorities only improve when viewed as benefiting the majority - eg. ability to study/work from home for disabled is only now being fully actualised as it benefits all
695D8 TIL that Emperor Wenxuan of Northern Qi had a homicidal urge (usually by dismemberment) every time he was drunk, so his prime minister set up a supply of condemned prisoners to the palace. If a prisoner could survive three months without being killed, he would be set free.
xV5ok TIL that Matthew Perry doesn’t remember filming three seasons of Friends due to his alcohol and Vicodin addiction, leading to a drastic weight loss and two rehab stints in his twenties.
wLbO6 TIL Washington set the two-term President tradition. He declined a 3rd term because "The line between Parties” had become “so clearly drawn” that politicians “regard neither truth nor decency; attacking every character without respect to persons who happen to differ from themselves in Politics."
rGbW TIL Fawlty Towers - considered by many (including the British Film Institute) to be the best British television series of all time - only consists of 12 episodes, and that the last 6 episodes were produced 4 years after the first 6.