› added 5 years ago

171

TIL that Ford initiated the 5 day work week... not to give people a 2 day break, but to improve human output and spending

Read more observer.com

via reddit.com

P1apn TIL about Eddie Waitkus, who was the inspiration for Robert Redford’s character in “The Natural.” Waitkus almost died in 1949 after being shot by an obsessed female fan. It is one of the earliest recognized cases of criminal stalking
nvrY TIL that Harriet Tubman carried a gun with her on the Underground Railroad. If a runaway slave threatened to give up and go back to the plantation, she would point the gun at him and threaten to shoot him dead.
xVRd5 TIL Cats domesticated themselves. They existed unchanged until the Middle Ages; and even now are genetically extremely close to their ancestors.
pYZPQ TIL Olive Yang, a Chinese housewife turned Narco-warlord. A smuggler since she was 19, she built a private army called "Olive's Boys" and took over an entire Burmese Province in the 1950s. Alongside rogue KMT army units, she helped jumpstart the infamous "Golden Triangle" Drug Trafficking Routes.
08Nv TIL Czech slave laborers during WWII put notes instead of explosives in the anti-aircraft shells they were forced to manufacture.