› added 1 day ago

3

TIL the British Empire banned slave trading in 1807 and used the Royal Navy to enforce it. Any ship caught with enslaved people onboard would be fined £100 a head. As a result, captains often ordered them thrown overboard to avoid the fine whenever they saw Royal Navy ships approaching.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

yVD7v TIL about Henry J. Kaiser, an American industrialist who helped build the Hoover Dam and whose steelyard made Liberty ships in WWII. At the height of his success he had his own automobile company and broadcast corporation. Today only the healthcare company Kaiser Permanente is left of his empire.
v1JK7 TIL of Ernie Davis, the first black player to win the Heisman Trophy and also the first black player to be drafted with the #1 draft pick, but never got to play a single day of professional football. He died of leukemia at 23.
Z8DkY TIL that in Michelangelo’s famous painting “The Creation of Adam”, there is an anatomically correct image of the human brain behind God, with his right arm extending to the prefrontal cortex, the most “human” part of the brain.
m1nNv TIL that after Crassus was killed by the Parthians at Carrhae, his severed head was delivered to the Parthian king Orodes who was watching a play with the Armenian king Artavasdes. The head was then used as a prop in the play representing the severed head of a character in the play.
LkL7Q TIL Mötley Crüe Front man, Vince Neil killed friend and fellow musician Nicholas "Razzle" Dingley and caused brain injury to two other people while driving drunk in 1985. Because, in Neil's own words, "that's the power of cash".