› added 12 years ago

149

TIL Martin Van Buren was the only US President to speak english… as a second language

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

Y7JoA TIL that in 1626, Peter Minuit is credited with purchasing Manhattan Island from Native Americans for just 60 Dutch guilders, equivalent to $1,143 in today’s US dollars
mkLY TIL that an Australian man living by a cliff has prevented around 160 suicides in his 50 years of living there, by striking up a conversation with people contemplating suicide and inviting them to his house for tea.
p8mQQ TIL comedian Conan O’Brien, host of the US talk show Conan, is a Harvard graduate and is on the board of directors for the John F. Kennedy presidential library and museum.
Lamp TIL Beethoven was once challenged to an improvisation contest by a famous pianist named Daniel Steibelt, Beethoven took the piece Steibelt’s music was written on, turned it upside down, played it, then improvised on that and mocked Daniel through his own music. Daniel left halfway through.
l70dA TIL that Timur, the Turko-Mongol conqueror who founded the Timurid Empire in Persia and Central Asia, reportedly caused the deaths of 17 million people, amounting to about 5% of the world population