› added 5 years ago

143

TIL in 1983, 50 corporations controlled 90% of the American media, including magazines, books, music, news feeds, newspapers, movies, radio and television. By 1992 that number had dropped by half. By 2000, six corporations had ownership of most media, and today five dominate the industry.

Read more pbs.org

via reddit.com

p8Y6G TIL Robert Johnson, the co-founder of BET and America’s first African-American billionaire, paid out a massive $400 million to his wife Sheila in a 2002 divorce. The massive settlement was decided by Judge William Newman, Jr., who three years later married Johnson's ex-wife
KOMvG TIL of a 2015 case of a woman with Dissociative Identity Disorder who had some blind personalities. Even with her eyes open, EEG showed brain activity associated with sight was absent when a blind alter was in control. When a sighted alter assumed control, visual brain activity returned
QX9d TIL Frank Sinatra helped as a liaison between the leader of Chicago’s mafia and the Kennedy family during the ‘60 primary, in order to get Union backing. When Kennedy reneged on his promises after being elected Sinatra was punished by having to play 8 straight nights at the crime bosses club.
R5pO4 TIL The “emergency calls only” mode works by using the network of another service provider that has a strong enough signal in the area. This means that your phone can connect to any available network for emergency calls, even if your own network is not working.
YpM4G TIL Americans, who only had to pay for the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, struggled to pull together funding. Joseph Pulitzer started a crowdfunding campaign and gathered $100,000 from more than 120,000 contributors, most of whom gave less than $1.