› added 5 months ago

45

Today I learned that construction of the Washington Monument was delayed for 13 years because the pro-slavery states decided to go rogue. #slaveryremembered.

Read more nps.gov

via reddit.com

nWx7G TIL that Craig Hodges, one of the best NBA players of his generation and an outspoken activist, was blacklisted from the league after wearing a dashiki during a White House visit and giving Bush Sr. a letter criticizing his administration’s treatment of the poor and minorities
GAljg TIL that the last of the kidnappers convicted of the 1976 Chowchilla bus kidnapping (in which 3 kidnappers hijacked a school bus with 26 children on board and forced them into a moving truck buried in a quarry before they escaped after 16 hours underground) was paroled in 2022.
x6JL5 TIL that the Kingdom of Portugal and the Portuguese Republic were founded on the same day (October 5, the Kingdom being founded by the Treaty of Zamora and the Republic being founded by the 1910 revolution).
PYZdg TIL that after an intense 8 artillery week barrage, British troops on the first day of the Battle of the Somme were so sure of their victory that 4 platoons had a competition to see who could kick a soccer ball into the German trenches first. Nearly 20,000 British men were killed that day
9w7DQ TIL that CBS used to add bird songs to their golf broadcasts to eliminate awkward silences. This went unnoticed until a viewer, familiar with the bird songs of the region, realized the sounds were from birds that didn't inhabit the area where the tournament was being held.