› added 6 years ago

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TIL that Robert Smalls who born into slavery stole a confederate military ship, disguised himself as a captain, used a secret code book and hand signals to pass Confederate guard ships, rescued slaves and families, worked as military advisor to the union until war ends and ran for Congress and won.

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W5m8 TIL Steven Russell escaped from prison by using laxatives to fake the symptoms of AIDS. He then called the prison, posing as a doctor, asking for prisoners interested in an experimental treatment, and volunteered. Once out of Texas, he sent death certificates to the prison stating he had died
moWM TIL that congressional approval for the first Gulf War was effected by the testimony of a Kuwaiti nurse who claimed to have witnessed Iraqi soldiers pulling babies out of incubators and throwing them on the floor to die. This never happened. The nurse was not a nurse. She was coached by a PR firm.
wQn6 TIL: $15 trillion in assets, which is 7% of the world’s financial assets owned by only only 30,000 investors, is controlled by a one computer named “Aladdin”
R76d1 TIL that "assload" and "buttload" have different origins. "Assload" originally referred to the load a donkey could carry, while "buttload" referred to the volume a "butt", a type of large cask, could hold.
Y7vQB TIL the record high (121F) and low (-60F) temperatures in North Dakota happened in the same year, just 5 months apart.