› added 5 years ago

81

TIL of Ranald MacDonald, a Chinook/Scotsman from Oregon Country, who went to Japan in 1848 despite its strict isolationist policy. Risking death, he pretended to be shipwrecked & got captured. While imprisoned, the gov't sent 14 samurai to be his pupils, as he became Japan's first English teacher.

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p81D8 TIL The band Heart played in Canada instead of the US for the first part of their career. They couldn't play in the US because their manager was hiding from the Vietnam draft in Canada.
W70JL TIL that in 1972 Indiana University accredited an entire course dedicated to the study of comic books, thanks to junior student Michael Uslan who would later become responsible for bringing Tim Burton's (1989) Batman to the big screen.
VMJ8G TIL of a traffic light in United States that is deliberately upside down - In 1920's the Irish community at Tipperary Hill, Syracuse didn't like that the "British" red appeared above the "Irish" green on the light and kept vandalizing it until New York State was convinced to keep it green over red.
X047R TIL: I that Wendy's created a D&D like role-playing game called the Feast of Legends, you help Queen Wendy defeat the evil Ronald McDonald.
Eg5YP TIL there is a Japanese word, tsundoku, which means buying a book but letting it pile up and never reading it.