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TIL in 1986 a Hotel in Singapore collapsed. Authorities were using heavy machinery to rescue survivors, a team of mainly Irish tunneling experts working on a new subway saw what was happening, and convinced authorities to let them tunnel for survivors instead. 17 people were rescued by them.

by whatilearned June 20, 2022, 12:44 pm

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TIL Ross McWhirter, co-founder of the Guinness Book of Records, was openly anti-Irish, advocating for mandatory registration of all Irish people in the UK with local authorities. He was assassinated by the IRA in 1975 by point-blank gunshot to the head.

by whatilearned June 17, 2022, 9:47 am

9 Points
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TIL a mother who posted photos of her kids online came across an unknown page that had printed her kids’ photos and put them in frames all over their house. Authorities looked into it, but did not find a crime.

by whatilearned June 12, 2022, 12:02 am

11 Points
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TIL that of the 57 people who died during the eruption of Mt. Saint Helens in 1980, only 6 were in areas authorities had noted as danger areas. 51 of them including an entire family, died while in sections that had been considered safe for camping and recreation.

by whatilearned June 6, 2022, 6:48 pm

12 Points
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TIL about Joseph of Cupertino, a Franciscan friar who is honored as a Christian saint. He was prone to miraculous levitation. He was deemed disruptive by his superiors and church authorities, however, and eventually was confined to a small cell, forbidden from joining in any public gatherings.

by whatilearned May 3, 2022, 10:10 pm

12 Points
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TIL: In 2003, there was a real Trolley car scenario in which authorities actively chose to endanger fewer people than doing nothing

by whatilearned April 14, 2022, 9:16 pm

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TIL that in the 18th and 19th century, platinum was so cheap in Spain that it was used for various frauds. Notably, they created counterfeit British sovereigns with a gold-plated alloy of platinum and copper. In order to control this problem, the authorities dumped confiscated platinum into the sea.

by whatilearned April 12, 2022, 3:17 am

12 Points
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TIL in June 2019 Germany taxed sanitary products at 19% and books at 7%, so a company started packaging and selling Tampons as books at the 7% tax rate and there was nothing authorities could do about it.

by whatilearned March 29, 2022, 12:05 pm

12 Points
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TIL Gucci was accused of evading taxes on more than 1 billion euros in revenues between 2011 and 2017. Its owner Kering, which has denied avoiding tax, agreed to pay $1.4B in 2019 to settle the dispute, which was the highest ever agreed settlement by a company with Italian tax authorities.

by whatilearned March 5, 2022, 8:51 am

12 Points
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4 Comments

Transcripts of radio conversations of a US naval ship with Canadian authorities

by cringeyjokesman February 16, 2022, 5:42 am

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TIL when Christopher Columbus landed in Lisbon after his first voyage, Portuguese authorities demanded a report of his travels. Columbus refused and sent a letter full of misinformation to the king of Spain so that Portugal wouldn’t get a headstart on invading the Americas if it was intercepted.

by whatilearned February 15, 2022, 5:23 pm

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TIL that in 1872, politician Boss Tweed fled to Spain to escape being convicted on fraud charges. However, he was deported and sent back to the US after Spanish authorities saw a political cartoon of him and mistaked him for a child abductor.

by whatilearned February 4, 2022, 11:55 pm

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