Charles Dickens’s novels were so popular in his day that poor people who couldn’t read would collectively pay someone to read his stories out loud. Charles Dickens was undoubtedly one of the world’s greatest novelists, at least in the Victorian era. While his works filled the shelves of aristocrats’ libraries worldwide, one of his greatest feats was his ability to reach out and inspire all classes of society. Masses of impoverished and illiterate fans would each pay a halfpenny (£0.25/$0.35 today) to have each of his monthly updates read out to them.
100 Mind-Blowing Impoverished Facts
Kim Il Sung loved Hennessy cognac so much he bought more than $800,000 of it per year! The vast majority of people in North Korea live rather impoverished lives, and this has been the case under multiple generations of the ruling dynasties now. High-ranking officials and North Korea’s leaders live very different lives, spoiling themselves lavishly and allowing themselves access to otherwise forbidden imported goods. For example, Kim Il Sung was so crazy about Hennessy that he was the cognac company’s number-one customer for a few years in the 1990s.