› added 9 years ago

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TIL that from 1936-1966, black Americans going on a road trip often used a “Negro Motorist Green Book” that would list businesses that sold to black people. The book helped travelers avoid one of 10,000 “sundown towns”, places it was the law that all non-whites had to leave the town by sundown.

5VP5R TIL in the 1930’s, Mussolini, outlawed pasta. Instead of producing strong Italian soldiers, the pasta weighed the youth down and made them lazy. The real reason was that Mussolini wanted to sell more rice, a staple crop in his home region in Northern Italy, which caused a split with the South.
KgY4 TIL: That Charles R Drew,The first African American to graduate Columbia medical school and a key scientist in the creation of the blood bank, Lost his job because he refused to segregate blood by the race of the donor
5VVKn TIL the color orange was named after the fruit orange, and not vice versa. Prior to its naming, it was referred to as yellow-red (ġeolurēad).
NXgLe TIL that Michael Jackson's Thriller album was the best-selling album in the U.S. for 2 years straight, sold 32 million copies worldwide by 1983, and was certified 34x Platinum by the RIAA in 2021, making it one of only two albums to ever get more than 3x Diamond certified.
wLKX1 TIL that in 1944 Dutch Resistance members dressed as German SD (intelligence agents) went into Leeuwarden prison, and walked out with 39 prisoners, and all vanished into the city. No shots were fired, and the Germans never caught anyone.