› added 11 years ago

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TIL that in 1993 Pepsi ran a contest in the Philippines in which it promised 1 million pesos, roughly $40,000, to the person who found the number 349 inside his bottle cap. Pepsi went on to mistakenly print 800,000 winning caps, leading to outrage and death threats to Pepsi executives.

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1aND8 TIL when Steve Buscemi was 4-years-old he was hit by a bus and managed to survive with a fractured skull. He received a $6,000 settlement from the city that was to be collected from a trust fund when he turned 18. When Buscemi turned 18, he used part of the money to pay for full-time acting classes.
VB4LZ TIL: An old english medicine receipt book from the 10th century contains a receipt for eyesalve consisting of vine, garlic, leeks and bile from a cow's stomach. Then it has to sit for 9 days in a brass bowl. Test from 2015 showed it to have a similar effect as modern antibiotics.
b9X09 TIL The New Hampshire Astronomical Society donated over a dozen telescopes to local public libraries around the state so they can be put into circulation just like a book. Their 4.5-inch telescopes shows the Moon and deep sky objects in far more detail than common "beginners" telescopes
B7LK TIL that the sabre-tooth squirrel featured in the 2002 film Ice Age was fictional… until a real one was discovered in 2011.
awl50 TIL: Genghis Khan had the greatest positive impact on the environment of this planet, his murderous Mongol armies were responsible for the massacre of as many as 40 million people, which actually helped scrub about 700 million tonnes of carbon from the atmosphere.