› added 3 years ago

97

TIL that the painter James McNeil Whistler was expelled from West Point by Robert E Lee

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

JYAAl TIL about Abram Petrovich Gannibal, an African child kidnapped to Russia as a gift for Peter the Great. The tsar freed him and raised him as his godson. Gannibal became a Major-General and the Governor of Reval. He is the great-grandfather of Alexander Pushkin, considered the greatest Russian poet.
p8b8A TIL that Nazi Germany made a New Testament Bible where they removed the genealogies of Jesus that showed his Davidic descent, removed Jewish names and places, but left any mention of Jews that showed them in a bad light, in an attempt to Aryanize Jesus.
YpxOA TIL that Columbia is the name of the female personification of the United States and showed up on WW1 patriotic posters much like Uncle Sam posters
nWxyr TIL the first parody movie was 1905's The Little Train Robbery, a parody of 1903's The Great Train Robbery. Both were directed by Edwin S. Porter
mxAEY TIL of the land of brushes. Kumano city in Japan's Hiroshima prefecture is famous for producing handmade brushes that are used by Hollywood makeup artists among others. But it only specialized in brushmaking after farmers had to sell brushes to earn an income during the agricultural off season.