› added 13 years ago

122

TIL before the 1980s, it was unlawful to own your own telephone.

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wdrP TIL Xu QinXian, the commander of China’s most elite army in 1989, refused to open fire on civilians at Tiananmen, stating: “the People’s Army has never in its history been used to suppress the people, I absolutely refuse to besmirch this historical record!” He was court martialled but not executed.
WQgN TIL the vibrator was invented for doctors who were getting carpel tunnel from using their fingers to give female patients orgasms in order to treat hysteria.
v1XZ7 TIL an actor was hired to play John Lennon in a 1985 bio pic but then fired because he had the same name, Mark Chapman, as Lennon’s killer
Oo7Zg TIL In 1900s, Minnie M. Cox, the first African-American woman postmaster in the United States, was forced to resign due to threats of physical harm from local white citizens. President Theodore Roosevelt, feeling Cox had been wronged, closed the post office and continued to pay her salary.
97x7 TIL Cincinnati was named after Roman dictator Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, who is cited as an example of outstanding leadership, service to the greater good, civic virtue, lack of personal ambition and modesty.