› added 10 years ago

172

TIL Al-Qaeda attacks financed by $500,000 cost the US more than $500 billion

Read more theatlantic.com

via reddit.com

QmQX TIL that the Paul Hogan “shrimp on the barbie” TV commercials were very effective. Australia rose from #78 to #1 or #2 on Americans’ list of “dream vacations” after the TV ads began running from 1984 to 1990. They made Hogan famous in the US before ‘Crocodile Dundee’ (1986) made him a film star.
8D4a TIL Scientists have compared China’s toxic air pollution to a nuclear winter
5YlXP TIL the island of Faisans in the middle of the Bidasoa river, on the border of Spain and France, switches countries every six months. This was agreed to as part of the signing of the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659. This sort of joint sovereignty is called a condominium.
OoW6X TIL of Hisashi Ouchi, a victim of a 1999 Japanese nuclear plant disaster. Radiation burns caused him to have nearly zero white blood cells. Despite his pleas, he was kept alive for research purposes. After 83 days in the hospital, he died of organ failure.
pY57Q TIL that in 2006, a woman named Edith Macefield turned down a reported offer of $1 million to sell her 108-year-old farmhouse to make way for a commercial development in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. Instead, the five-story project was built surrounding her house.