› added 11 years ago

88

TIL that when the British invaded Washington in 1814, they held a mock session of congress. They voted whether or not they should burn the city to the ground, soldiers unanimously agreed in favor of the motion.

Read more plymrock.org

via reddit.com

pYRyQ TIL about James Clark McReynolds, who served as a Supreme Court justice from 1914 until 1941. He would not accept "Jews, drinkers, blacks, women, smokers, married or engaged individuals" as law clerks, did not speak to Justice Louis Brandeis for three years, and was nicknamed "Scrooge."
wg57 TIL that Shakespeare intentionally made grammatical errors to heighten the attention of his audiences before key points in his plays - the technique is called ‘functional shift’ and the use of it keeps the brain alive!
PYaxg TIL of the Greater Fool Theory, which states that the price of an object is determined not by its intrinsic value, but rather by irrational beliefs and expectations of market participants.
R5Nr7 TIL that Lucille Ball convinced Merv Griffin to hire Alex Trebek to host the revival of Jeopardy in 1984 when original host Art Fleming, a friend of Trebek’s, declined to return. Trebek holds the Guinness World Records for most episodes of a game show hosted, hosted the show until his death in 2020.
b6e8Q TIL that Neanderthals living 90,000 years ago in Portugal had a taste for a seafood delicacy that's still popular today, and regularly caught and ate crabs, roasting them on coals and cracking them open with stone tools.