› added 5 years ago

283

TIL that the Dutch East India Company was the first company to ever go public on a stock exchange, raising enough capital to become a multinational conglomerate with over 70,000 employees. At it's peak, the company was worth 78 million Dutch guilders - equivalent to $7.4 trillion today.

Read more fool.com

via reddit.com

yrmJ TIL the river Congo is at one point 8 MILES wide
Z4ED TIL Keith Richards would help set up the elaborate speaker systems on stage for the Rolling Stones concerts, so they would have a secret place to sniff pharmeceutical cocaine during their performance.
0aRN TIL: The Acanthopis snake is known as the Death Adder but that name is, somewhat ironically, a mishearing of the original name ‘Deaf Adder’ which comes from the fact that, unlike other snakes, they do not run away from human disturbance.
vD9j TIL that Silbury Hill, a man-made structure almost as old as the Great Pyramid, but built in Britain, covers an enormous area equal to more than four football fields. But historians are still not sure about its purpose.
rVDW TIL that Vince Offer, the ShamWow! guy, used the proceeds from his late night marketed movie, The Underground Comedy Movie, to sue the Church of Scientology.