› added 9 years ago

97

TIL GM tried to discredit Ralph Nader, hiring private detectives to tap his phones and investigate his past, and hired prostitutes to trap him in compromising situations. Nader sued GM and settled the case for $425,000. He used the money to start the pro-consumer Center for Study of Responsive Law.

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JYB4l TIL Muhammad Ali was stripped of his heavyweight title and faced a five-year prison term, at the height of the Vietnam War for refusing to fight. "I ain't got no quarrel with those Vietcong, they never called me n****r."
VMww0 TIL that many countries used "Immurement" as a form of punishment, where the victim was locked in a box and left to starve to death. The latest usage was in 1914, where a Mongolian woman left in a wooden crate died of dehydration.
OoAlX TIL that the US military has never banned the use of napalm on military targets away from civilian areas, and still has a type of bomb very similar to napalm called the Mark 77 that has been used in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
4XOZ6 TIL That the term "Agnostic" was coined in 1869 by T.H. Huxley, and not as a description, but as a creed: "to follow reason as far as it can take you, but then, when you have established as much as you can, frankly and honestly to recognize the limits of your knowledge."
wLg1W TIL that the Japanese word for “brown” is 茶色 (cha-iro). The first character means “tea”, and the second one means “colour”. Thus, literally translated, it means “tea colour”.