Today I Learned…

After moving into a house in Pancevo, Yugoslavia, the new owner opened some shutters in front of a walled-in window and was surprised to find that unopened mail — some of it dating back 90 years — tumbled out. Mrs. Vera Aremovic told reporters that her father and grandfather, both merchants with extensive business connections throughout the Austro-Hungarian Empire, had lived in the house during the nine decades postmen had been dropping mail through an open shutter thinking there was a glass pane behind it. Their business had eventually failed, she said, because their customers complained that they never answered letters. (From Bizarre World, by Bill Bryson)