› added 7 years ago

115

TIL that Jeff Bezos is not the richest man in history. Both Carnegie & Rockefeller had 3x his wealth.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

b67aj TIL Frankenstein did not have a hunchback assistant called Igor in either Mary Shelley's novel or the original Universal and Hammer films. The character is a pastiche of multiple characters across several movies.
e0xL5 TIL that tensions between the US and UK nearly escalated to war over the killing of a pig in 1859. An American farmer on a disputed island found the pig eating potatoes in his garden and shot it, and after the British threatened arrest, the settlers called for help. Both sides sent major forces.
x9JD TIL Heath Ledger was an avid chess player; he won Western Australia’s junior chess championship at age 10 and as an adult he would play against other chess enthusiasts at Washington Square Park.
xOxD TIL of Eugene Bullard, the first African-American fighter pilot in history. He flew in WWI, was an integral part of the French Underground in WW2 and was a national hero in France. He spent his later years as an unknown elevator operator in America.
nWJXd TIL when a newly discovered sponge-like fungi was named after SpongeBob SquarePants in 2011, a mycological research journal initially rejected the name for being “too frivolous”. When challenged, the scientists stood behind their discovery, saying “we’ll name it whatever we like”.