› added 10 years ago

411

TIL the first slave owner in what would become America was black.

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5VOQ8 TIL Japan slaughtered all the animals in Tokyo zoo during WW2 worried that they’ll escape in case of US/UK air attacks
KOyV4 TIL that "decimation" means "removal of a tenth" in Latin, and refers to a Roman practice in which military commanders punished units for capital offenses by having soldiers execute 1 in 10 of their comrades.
O576 TIL that the Nigerian version of Sesame Street, Sesame Square, stars a HIV-positive muppet to help remove the stigma of being HIV-positive.
ZpYvG TIL: in 1968, the US Navy proposed a 6,000 mile long underground antenna system that would have covered 40% of the state of Wisconsin. It needed 100 underground power plants and was supposed to survive nuclear attacks.
n9VY TIL that many words used to be spelled phonetically (e.g. debt was ‘det’) until some scholars purposely added silent letters to make them look more like Greek or Latin words, sometimes erroneously.