› added 5 years ago

196

TIL that President Gerald Ford stood up for civil rights in 1934 by threatening to quit his college football team, unless they let Willis Ward (African American) play against the south’s Georgia Tech. He agreed to play only after Ward asked him to, because they couldn’t afford to lose that game.

Read more mlive.com

via reddit.com

Wbn8 TIL that serial killer John Wayne Gacy met First Lady Rosalynn Carter in 1978. The picture of them together shows him wearing a pin that meant Secret Service gave him special clearance.
Z8Zya TIL after reading the script for ‘Stop! Or My Mother Will Shoot,’ Arnold Schwarzenegger thought it was so bad that he leaked fake interest in the film to the press to get rival star, Sylvester Stallone, to try to steal the role. It worked and Stallone starred in the critical and commercial flop.
l76GV TIL that in the Victorian era, women wore crotchless panties and urinated in gravy boat-like vessels called “bourdalous”
Z8QAR TIL that French Guiana is legally part of France, and not a separate country, in a similar way to Hawaii being legally part of the USA. Technically all maps of France should probably have a window with French Guiana in the corner, the way Hawaii usually appears on maps of the USA.
160Vd TIL that Julius Caesar wept when he visited the tomb of Alexander the Great in 48 BC, deeply moved by Alexander’s early conquests and the legacy he left at such a young age. Caesar admired Alexander as a source of inspiration for his own ambitions.