› added 4 years ago

67

TIL that Jeremiah G. Hamilton was a Wall Street broker noted as "the only Black millionaire in New York" about a decade before the American Civil War. He amassed a fortune of $2 million ($250,000,000 in 2018 dollars) by the time of his death in 1875. He was known as "The Prince of Darkness"

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

jNoQX TIL an Ohio judge once sentenced a woman to spend a day at the "Stinkiest, smelliest" section of a landfill, as a punishment for neglecting her dog. "If you puke, you puke."
8eGJK TIL on August 8th, 2023 a historical society installed a plaque commemorating Dave Matthew’s Band tour bus dumping 800 pounds of human sewage on a tour boat beneath a Chicago bridge.
wLlJ6 TIL that Denmark held a general election during German occupation in 1943. In a disappointing result for the occupiers, the Danish Nazi Party won just 2.1% of the vote.
aw6eA TIL in the 1940s, AT&T sued Harry Tuttle for inventing the Hush-A-Phone—a device that silenced phones from eavesdroppers. AT&T argued the “device hadn’t been installed by their company” and the FCC voted in AT&T’s favor, but Tuttle continued to fight the case in open court and eventually won.
9lbD TIL Reed Hastings was inspired to start Netflix after racking up a $40 late fee on a VHS copy of Apollo 13.