› added 2 years ago

71

TIL What is now Federal Triangle in DC was once a slum known as Murder Bay, and so many prostitutes were present to serve the needs of Civil War General Joseph Hooker's army it was also known as "Hooker's Division"

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

9yPr TIL that an Orca killed a Great White Shark near California’s Farallon Islands in 2000. The smell of the dead shark’s carcass caused all nearby great whites to vanish. A great white with a satellite tag in the area was seen to immediately dive to a depth of 500 meters and then swam to Hawaii.
d80Pd TIL that rocking back and forth or moving in general activates the hippocampus while learning and memorizing things. Some people chew gum instead of the back and forth rock. Recall improves while moving and learning, and recalling things 5 times over a spread of days can burn in the working memory.
8AnP TIL that in Turkish, the bird we call a Turkey is called “Hindi” (“from India”). In India, it’s called “Peru.” In Arabic, the bird is called “Greek chicken”; in Greek it’s called “French chicken”; and in French it’s called “Indian chicken.” The bird is indigenous to none of these places.
epaL4 TIL that the state of Mississippi didn't ratify the 13th Amendment which abolished slavery until 2013 and it only happened because somebody watched the movie "Lincoln" and was curious about the amendment.
grBDy TIL of the "Wolfram Crisis" - a WW2 diplomatic conflict between Spain and Allied powers - starving Nazi military industrial complex of tungsten was so important, UK and USA had to forcefully coerce Spain to stop its exports of the metal to Germany