› added 7 years ago

61

TIL about "world's humblest president" José Mujica, former president of Uruguay, who drove a $1800 VW Beetle to work, donated most of his presidential salary to charities for the poor, and opted to lived on his farm instead of the presidential palace.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

YEwx TIL that an estimated 10-20% of the entire population of Mauritania is enslaved. It only became a crime in 2007.
lo88V TIL Nina Simone, born Eunice Kathleen Waymon, had to change her name to disguise herself from family members, for having chosen to play "the devil's music"
1kaD TIL that 30% of American adults use Facebook as their primary source of news
ZpGlQ TIL Tsukuba Syndrome, a phenomenon where researchers in Tsukuba Science City, a research hub northeast of Tokyo, committed suicide in the 1970s-80s. The suicide rate was more than twice that of the general population. In late 1985, three people from the same lab took their lives within a month.
9YgLm TIL Abraham Lincoln's assassination helped to popularize travel by train due to the amount of press and exposure Lincoln's funeral train received. Up until then, most Americans had never seen a passenger train.