› added 10 years ago

94

TIL That President Kennedy promised to “end housing discrimination with a stroke of the pen” when he got in to office; when he didn’t do so, Civil Rights groups sent thousands of pens to the White House in protest.

Read more thenyic.org

via reddit.com

K5GG [TIL] that after WW2, France sent 49 (one for each state) special boxcars filled with gifts to the US, thanking the nation and her people for their help in World War Two. The train was called the “Merci Train.”
8eEw8 TIL Harley Quinn was meant to apear once in Batman the animated series. Then Paul Dini changed his mind when he thought givin the Joker a foil would bring out some of his personality traits.
VB6pG TIL the Grand Army of the Republic, a fraternity composed of veterans of the Union Army, Union Navy, and the Marines who served in the American Civil War, was dissolved in 1956 at the death of its last member, Civil War veteran Albert Woolson. At its peak, the organization had 410,000 members.
7pRr TIL That a Romanian gypsy is the youngest grandmother in the world at age 23. She had her daughter when she was 12 and in turn her daughter had her first child at 11.
nejd7 TIL German and Russian troops had to call a temporary truce in modern Lithuania/Belarus during WWI because wolves kept trying to eat them. “Poison, rifle fire, hand grenades and even machine guns were tried to no avail.” Wolves even attacked them in the trenches, making effective battle impossible.