› added 7 years ago

111

TIL that the tiny European country of San Marino conferred citizenship on Abraham Lincoln, who responded by thanking them and praising their system of government.

Read more quod.lib.umich.edu

via reddit.com

kY4B TIL that in 2011 Geico spent just under one billion dollars on advertising
wLP9E TIL in 2007, reigning Jeopardy! champion Scott Weiss purposely placed his final bet in such a way as to force the first three-way tie in the game's history. He said he knew he could have bet more and won the game, but thought it would be fun to force a tie instead.
wAkW TIL A Florida Sheriff’s Office twice arrested the wrong “Ashley Chiasson”, who served 5 weeks in jail, even though there was a 20lb and 5 inch difference in the women and they had a different middle name. Key witnesses and victims were not shown photo lineups to identify the suspect in both cases.
rNORM TIL when a university's underwater archeology team ran out of funding for researching Captain Morgan's shipwreck, the rum maker of the same name funded thier research
rymy TIL the first time “Instant Replay” was used was in the 1960 winter olympics. In the men’s slalom event, officials who were unsure if a skier had missed a gate asked CBS if they could review tape of the event. This request gave CBS the idea for what is now known as instant replay.