› added 8 years ago

108

TIL that a man escaped from a German prison by hiding in a cardboard box, which was then taken outside of the prison by courier

Read more news.bbc.co.uk

via ift.tt

9wwKD TIL Major-General Charles George Gordon was a British Army officer who made his military reputation in China. He was placed in command of the "Ever Victorious Army" which was instrumental in putting down the Taiping Rebellion. The Emperor of China promoted Gordon to the rank of tidu.
bbBp TIL that in Finland, speeding ticket prices are calculated on the percentage of an individual’s income. This results in millionaires facing exorbitant fees. One such case occurred in 2002 when a Nokia executive was fined $103,000 for going 45mph in a 30mph zone on his motorbike.
e04j6 TIL: After Ralph Nader Published "Unsafe at any Speed" in 1965, General Motors kept trying to discredit him, including hiring a prostitute to seduce him, but he turned her away. So they hired detectives to prove he was gay, but they were caught when Nader entered Congress and they tried to follow.
4K7w TIL that Anthony Lane, a film critic for the New Yorker, once began reviewing ‘Contact’ (1997) and noted it “v. gloomy,” “odd noir look for sci-fi,” “creepy shadows in outdoor scene,” before realizing he had forgotten to take off his sunglasses.
LloP TIL the word “niggardly” is an adjective meaning “stingy” or “miserly,” and is completely unrelated to the racial slur “nigger” despite their phonetic similarity.