TIL that in 1916, a conman called Sir Edmund Backhouse, claiming to be working for the Chinese government, sold the UK six (non-existent) battleships and an (imaginary) flotilla-load of rifles.

[since originally being published on Reddit, the resource in question has been moved to http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-30513]

r/Roman meet up photo. Fuck you guys.

In Europe? Here's the trick I used when Civ 5 was first released to get it a few days early... it'll probably work for Gods & Kings, too.

I’ve just tried this and it works; thought I’d share my results with you so that any fellow Europeans can…

TIL that minutes before the Halifax Explosion (the largest ever non-nuclear, man-made explosion), a dispatcher named Vince Coleman returned to his station to send a warning telegram, saving 300 lives at the cost of his own.

Patrick Vincent Coleman Patrick Vincent Coleman (13 March 1872 – 6 December 1917) was a train dispatcher for the Canadian Government Railways (formerly…