› added 5 years ago

219

TIL in 2012, 2410 years after the original trial, a mock trial of Socrates was held by a panel consisting of 10 international judges deciding under the ancient Athenian law. Final vote was split 5-5 and he was narrowly acquitted. Audience members watching the mock trial also voted 584-282 to acquit.

Read more youtu.be

via reddit.com

R50K1 TIL that as of June 2022, Canada has a land border with Europe. After decades of disagreement – called the 'whisky war' – over who owned the unoccupied Hans Island between the Canadian territory of Nunavut and Greenland, the two governments agreed to split it down the middle.
xaY7 TIL: When slaves were freed in the USA, some towns in the south would arrest young black men for not having a job and then sell them to corporations like US Steel as slaves for the duration of their sentence
ep4GJ TIL: Leona Helmsley, was dubbed "The Queen of Mean". She came from an immigrant family and in her late 40s became a real estate mogul going from new millionaire to billionaire in the next 2 decades. She was known for being abusive and left $5 billion to dog charities and more to her dogs than kids.
VPvQ TIL that during the Korean War, the U.S Military ran out of mortar rounds and as a result accidentally ordered thousands of crates of ‘Tootsie Rolls’ candy. This is because the U.S Army used 'Tootsie Roll’ as a slang code for mortar shells.
lo5Qa TIL Bayard Rustin was told to move to the back of a bus, but stopped when a white child reached out to grab his tie, before being scolded by its mom. He thought, “I owe it to that child, that it should be educated to know that blacks do not want to sit in the back”. He was then arrested and beaten.