› added 10 years ago

89

TIL that 95% of the world’s financial transactions is speculation.

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Y11r TIL When Walter Washington, the first mayor of Washington D.C. and first African-American mayor of major US city, sent his proposed budget to congress, Democratic Representative John L. McMillan sent a truckload of watermelons to his office in response.
Me6vb TIL that Pink Floyd musician David Gilmour CBE auctioned his guitars for charity. His Black Strat sold for $3,975,000 making it the most expensive guitar sold at auction. Proceeds of the auction, which raised $21,490,750, were donated to ClientEarth environmental charity.
kJJv7 TIL that during WW2, an 2.5mi stretch of a newly tunnelled London Underground extension was converted to an electronics factory, to replace one that had been bombed in 1940
69rlW TIL that in his letter of 1637 to the Procurators of San Marco, Monteverdi complains that the bass Aldegati, in front of a congregation shouted, “The Director of Music comes from a brood of cut-throat bastards, a thieving, fucking, he-goat… and I shit on him and whoever protects him.”
v9l7 TIL that the Ludlow Massacre was an attack by the Colorado National Guard on a tent camp of 1,200 striking coal miners and their families back in 1914. The attack ended up claiming over 2 dozen lives, including wives and children of the strikers.