French frigate Méduse (1810) - Incompetent captain leaves 147 souls to their fate on an improvised raft for eight days, after which cannibalism ensued, and only 15 remained alive ( en.wikipedia.org )
Gary Plauché - American man known for publicly killing Jeff Doucet, an accused child molester who had kidnapped and raped his son Jody ( en.wikipedia.org )
Murder of Blair Adams - Canadian man who, in 1996, believed his life was in danger, grabbed everything of any value from his home and escaped to Tennessee where he would be found murdered ( en.wikipedia.org )
Inokashira Park dismemberment incident - Unsolved murder in Tokyo noted for the victim's body being cut into 20cm pieces with precision equated to that of a highly trained medical professional ( en.wikipedia.org )
John Allen Chau - American missionary who prepared for his meeting with the Sentinelese by training in a mock village populated by staff pretending to be hostile natives wielding fake spears ( en.wikipedia.org )
Year Without a Summer - Severe climate abnormalities that caused average global temperatures to decrease by 0.4–0.7 °C (0.7–1 °F) in 1816 ( en.wikipedia.org )
Bell Witch ( en.wikipedia.org )
Eyestalk ablation - Wikipedia ( en.wikipedia.org )
TIL that to promote potatoes, French agronomist Parmentier put guards around his potato fields, making them seem valuable. At night, they were left unguarded, so peasants could steal potatoes and grow ( en.wikipedia.org )
A Lizard in a Woman's Skin - 1971 giallo film featuring a realistic dog experimentation scene that almost landed the director a two-year sentence before being proven to be special effects ( en.wikipedia.org )
Xin Zhui - Remarkably preserved Chinese mummy from 163 B.C. with all features and soft tissue still intact ( en.wikipedia.org )
TIL the only guy in ZZ Top without a giant beard is named Frank Beard. ( en.wikipedia.org )
TIL that a French and British submarine collided in 2009. They both moved so quietly that they could not detect each other and accidentally happened to run into each other. ( en.wikipedia.org )
Land and water hemispheres - Wikipedia ( en.wikipedia.org )
I feel like this explains a lot more of how I think about the the geography of the world today than any other map I've seen recently. This is why Australia seems strange and distant while China is familiar, despite the much higher language and culture affinity I have with post-colonial Australia.
TIL that player behaviors to a software bug that created a pandemic in World of Warcraft had similarities to COVID-19 in the real world ( en.wikipedia.org )
... researchers noted the similarities between the game and the real-world pandemics. Both had an immediate impact on dense urban areas, which limited the effectiveness of containment procedures in stopping the spread of disease, while air travel, like fast travel, allowed infections to spread across large parts of the world...
Candace Newmaker - 10-year-old who died amid cries that she was suffocating during a 70min "rebirthing" therapy wrapped from head to toe by pillows in an attempt to simulate uterine contractions ( en.wikipedia.org )
Live Scenes from New York - Dream Theater album released on Sept 11, 2001 that had to be pulled out because its cover showed the WTC twin towers in flames ( en.wikipedia.org )
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List of last words - Wikipedia ( en.wikipedia.org )
TIL Peter Molyneux failed his first game so badly he started a baked bean export company, which got confused with a software firm and kickstarted his development career ( en.wikipedia.org )
After his first game venture failed, Peter Molyneux started a baked bean export business. Commodore International mistakenly offered him ten free Amiga systems because they confused the baked bean company's name "Taurus" with a software company "Torus", and he used the hardware to create a database system for the Amiga, which...
TIL that African wild dogs have been observed "voting" to decide if the group should go on a hunt. To "vote" for a hunt, the dogs sneeze. ( en.wikipedia.org )
TIL Bob Barker was an enrolled member of the Sioux Tribe and grew up on a reservation in South Dakota ( en.wikipedia.org )
Darlie Routier - Mother on death row for allegedly murdering her sons, charges she continue to deny and pin on an intruder ( en.wikipedia.org )
TIL that in 2010 the stock market experienced a flash crash, caused by automatic trading. Over a trillion dollars were lost and mostly regained, all in 36 minutes. Exact causes remain disputed. ( en.wikipedia.org )
TIL about Eugene Debs, a 1920 Socialist candidate who ran for President while jailed in Federal prison for sedition, receiving 3.4% of the vote at the time. He promised to pardon himself if elected. ( en.wikipedia.org )
Eugene Debs, a Socialist leader in the early 20th century, ran for President five times. His fifth and highest vote count came in the 1920 Presidential election, in which he was running while in Federal prison for sedition. He received about 3.4% of the vote at the time (which included women for the first time since the...
Kim Wall - Swedish journalist that was murdered and dismembered by Danish entrepreneur Peter Madsen inside his midget submarine ( en.wikipedia.org )
