› added 6 years ago

515

TIL That there was once a phone booth in the middle of the Mojave desert that was demolished because it became famous on the internet

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rR5MW TIL 40% of British government expenditure in 1833 was compensation paid to slave owners following abolition. The amount borrowed to fund this wasn’t paid of until 2015.
QJxMk TIL Microplastics in Fresh Water Are Mostly Laundry Lint
4X7QJ TIL Dr. Charles R. Drew, an African American, developed improved techniques for blood storage, which saved thousands of Allied forces' lives during WWII. In 1942, however, he resigned as director of the first American Red Cross Blood Bank because of their exclusion of African-Americans' blood.
E6j7 TIL that D.W. Griffiths, who made the racist pro-KKK film “The Birth of a Nation”, responded to his critics with subsequent films that preached social justice and the first ever movie about an interracial love story.
yogl TIL that in 2009 a 5 year old autistic boy stole a penguin from Connecticut’s Mystic Aquarium by putting it in his backpack while on a field trip.