› added 4 years ago

61

TIL about the Maxi Trial. Held in Italy between 1986 and 1992, it convicted 338 mafiosi including 19 bosses, the latter of whom all got life sentences. It was the largest trial of all time. The two (Italian equivalent of) lead prosecutors and several judges were murdered afterwards.

KYAQQ TIL Gypsies, aka Romani, are descendants of a nomadic tribe originating from the Punjab region of India, travelling across Europe around the 8th century. They retained many aspects of their nomadic lifestyle. The name "Gypsy" comes from the fact that people mistakenly thought they came out of Egypt.
R7VDj TIL A man only survived the 1902 Mount Pelee eruption, which killed 30,000 people, because he’d been thrown in jail the day before and his cell was partially underground. It had thick stone walls, a bomb-proof magazine, and a small slit for breathing with no other windows.
nrxP TIL that some countries, in the 70s, including the United Kingdom, Poland, Hungary, and the Netherlands, cassette data storage was so popular that some radio stations would broadcast computer programs that listeners could record onto cassette and then load into their computer.
GYLBN TIL During WW2 British prisoners captured by the Japanese were not allowed to sing, in an effort to stop the morale of the prisoners from getting to high, so they whistled instead, an example of this can be seen in the film "Bridge over the River Kwai".
V870 TIL instead of signing their name on official documents, Japanese people carry around a unique stamp called a hanko which serves as their signature.