› added 10 years ago

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TIL that the British Royal Navy (at substantial cost) established a fleet of ships known as the ‘West Africa Squadron’ which would patrol the west coast of Africa, capturing slave ships. This fleet is estimated to have captured 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 African slaves between 1808 & 1860.

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m1rEp TIL Garbage's song 'Fix Me Now' was originally called 'Chris Cornell': in a Yahoo! interview in 2017, one day after Chris' passing, singer Shirley Manson told she was once so 'obsessed' with Cornell that she nearly named the song after him.
NXeWE TIL that there is an eight-member “Effervescence & Champagne” research team at the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne, where they study the effects of bubbles on champagne, as well as cola and beer.
dygZ TIL in 1918, after a white man was killed by a black man, a white mob went on a week-long riot and killed at least 13 people, including an African-American woman. She was burned alive, and her unborn baby was cut from her stomach and crushed because she spoke out against her husband’s murder.
VBmmG TIL Japanese beetles did not exist in North America until 1912. They were first observed in a nursery in New Jersey after an international shipment of iris bulbs
xVNOg TIL that Ugandan boxer Kassim Ouma was kidnapped at the age of six and forced to join the National Resistance Army. While in the army he was never shot, however, after moving to the US he was shot twice