› added 11 years ago

87

TIL when the 28 year-old Richard Branson bought Necker Island in the 1970s, the asking price was $5 million. Branson successfully negotiated it down to $180,000. The island is worth upwards of $200 million today.

Read more virgin.com

via reddit.com

XLmk TIL when Martin Luther King Jr. won the Nobel Peace Prize, Atlanta threw him a dinner party that was almost cancelled due to opposition. Coca-Cola’s CEO threatened to move the company out of Atlanta since he thought it was embarrassing that the city’s people wouldn’t honor their Nobel Prize winner.
LVNp TIL: Coffee was banned in Mecca in 1511. It was believed to stimulate radical thinking and hanging out.
aww0J TIL Louis XIV's minister of finance had the huge Forest of Troncais created in 1670 to provide the future French Navy with a supply of oak masts. When the forest reached maturity 250 years later, the navy was busy switching to steam ships.
LRdm TIL the spire of the Empire State Building was originally constructed as a tethering post for zeppelins and other airships
eO0k TIL Bobby Farrell, male singer of 70’s disco group “Boney M”, known for their hit single “Rasputin”, died while on tour on the anniversary of the death of Rasputin, in the same city where Rasputin died, St.Petersburg.