› added 5 years ago

83

TIL the Great Dismal Swamp (at the border of North Carolina and Virginia) held the largest "Maroon" colony (escaped slaves and their descendants) in the United States. Most managed to stay hidden despite militia invasions that aimed to capture them, and only left the swamp after the civil war.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

WZ14 TIL in 1985 an F-15 fighter jet successfully shot down a satellite with a missile; by 1998, there were still 8 trackable pieces in orbit
glv4 TIL a man was sent a letter offering him a credit card but he didn’t like the terms. So he altered the contract to include unlimited credit at 0% interest which the bank automatically accepted but then tried to void his card. He sued the bank for not sticking to terms of the credit contract and won.
KnP4 TIL ‘waiterless’ restaurants were pioneered in the late 1800s and were a hit in the early 20th century with the arrival of the Automat; the walls inside each store were lined with a series of small windows containing food. For a fee the window unlocked, allowing customers to pull out a meal.
W70od TIL that some diseases are so rare that there have been less than 100 reported cases to date. An example of an ultra rare disease is Zimmermann-Laband syndrome, also known as KCNH1.
mxxjM TIL Clive Wearing, the man with a 7 second memory, has kept a journal for 20 years in which almost every entry is his first moment of consciousness