› added 5 years ago

95

TIL about Soong Mei-Ling, the sister-in-law of Sun Yat-sen and the wife of Chiang Kai-shek. Her life traversed three centuries, and she lived through pretty much all the forms of government that China has tried - emperor, republic, communism, dictatorship.

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6K4w TIL : A merchant was sentenced to face a lion in the arena when he was caught selling fake jewels to the Empress, when the cage opened however a chicken walked out, the Emperor then proclaimed that “He practiced deceit and then had it practiced on him”.The merchant was allowed to go home then.
kmyg TIL the original voice for Siri was a woman named Susan Bennett. She was paid hourly to record nonsense phrases for a third party company, and only later learned that she had provided Apple with “all of the sounds of the English language”, which they could then formed into any response.
7rAyO TIL of Civilian Public Service (CPS), a US government program that provided conscientious objectors with an alternative to military service during World War II. CPS draftees fought forest fires, helped reform an abusive mental health system, and even acted as test subjects in medical experiments.
vP0rr TIL Union Monument in Vanceburg, Kentucky is the only monument honoring Union soldiers south of the Mason-Dixon line that is not in a cemetery
Z86RR TIL that 80's metal bands Twisted Sister and Manowar were involved in a feud. In an interview, Manowar called Twisted Sister a bunch of 'sissy boys with makeup'. Twisted Sister challenged them to a street fight at Covent Garden, but Manowar never showed up and later apologised for offending them.