› added 10 years ago

73

TIL before Mao took control of China, he ruled an unrecognized country in the southwest called the Chinese Soviet Republic.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

rpno TIL The Boston Miracle resulted in a 79% drop in youth homicides in the 1990s after juvenile handgun homicides more than tripled from 22 victims in 1987 to 73 victims in 1990. A young youth pastor, Rev. Jeffrey Brown, simply went into the streets and listened to gang members problems.
R5l1a TIL the founder of the Mayo Clinic taught osteology using the skeleton of an executed Dakota chief that had been stolen from his grave. The remains were not returned until the 1990s
0ddnv TIL about the Vennbahn, a former railway line that runs across Germany, but the trackbed of the line is part of Belgium, so it creates 5 exclaves of Germany, one of which is only a house with a garden
QGXa TIL Robert Downey Jr. was cast as Lex Luthor in Superman: Flyby, a Superman reboot written by J.J. Abrams that was never made
4X55a TIL a miner in the California desert spent 40 years digging a half-mile tunnel alone, by hand. Twenty years into the project, the state completed a road that eliminated the need for the tunnel, but the miner spent another two decades finishing it.