› added 1 year ago

149

TIL As a teenager, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping went to Europe on a work-study program designed by anarchists who hoped a Western education would create a cohort capable of reviving China

Read more jacobin.com

via reddit.com

aworM TIL about the Battle of Jumonville Glen, in which a young George Washington ambushed a French Canadian outpost. This became the opening battle of the French and Indian War.
wKB1 TIL, Al Gore graduated 25th in his class of 51, applied to only one college, Harvard, and was accepted.
d8Vgr TIL nearly every major vehicle in the British Army is equipped with a boiling vessel (to make tea). This tradition started with tanks near the end of WWII. It was safer than the improvised cans filled with fuel, and it reduced break time.
e0eYg TIL African Elephants are evolving to not have tusks, protecting themselves from poachers but also harming their species
EgPJX TIL that the ancient Greeks placed a coin in or on the mouth of a dead person before burial. It is a myth that they placed a pair of them on the eyes.