› added 7 years ago

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TIL of Twilight Sleep, a popular childbirth practice that was supposedly pain-free because it erased the memory of the birth by putting the women in a semi-narcotic state. In reality, women thrashed, banged their heads, clawed, screamed, were bound, and laid in their own vomit and waste.

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wLgjM TIL: Hucksters and flim flam men plagued Iowa in the pre-WW1 years selling "patented" bridges that fell apart or washed away to naive county commissioners.
Z86xR TIL from 1777 to 1870, Vermont had a fourth branch of government called the Council of Censors. It consisted of 13 members, elected every 7 years, who had to check if "the legislative and executive branches have performed their duty as guardians of the people." They could also amend the constitution
v1E5K TIL of the Freedmen. The Cherokee had black slaves. In 1866 they signed a treaty that freed them and granted them and their descendants, tribal citizenship after Emancipation. The Nation has ostracized them and is trying to strip them of tribal citizenship largely due to their darker complexion.
9YxJD TIL about Captain Midnight, a Florida man who hijacked HBO’s satellite to protest their high prices.
j6n7j TIL Connecticut’s 1662 charter from King Charles II gave it land from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Until 1786, it claimed territory between the 41st and 42nd parallels, including parts of what are now Utah, Nevada, and California. It wasn’t until 1800 that it gave up much of what became Ohio.