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TIL photographer Mathew Brady captured over 7000 photos of the US Civil War (including the portrait of Lincoln that would be used for the $5 bill), which have become the most important visual documentation of the period. He died in debt after the US gov’t did not buy his master-copies after the war.

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b941Q TIL the United States military pays professional sports teams to display patriotism. Between 2012-2014 the military spent $10.4 million on marketing contracts with teams in the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL and MLS, while spending $88 million sponsoring a NASCAR racer's car.
gMn9L TIL in 1991 Isaac Wright Jr. was wrongfully convicted of being a drug kingpin in New Jersey and sentenced to life in prison. While in prison, he studied law to pursue his own appeal and extracted a confession of police misconduct from the detective responsible for his conviction, exonerating Wright.
9VVB TIL Saudi Arabia now outspends both the UK and France on military expenditure. $67 Billion
0wVRp TIL Norway had the biggest merchant fleet during WW2 with over 1000 ships, and shipped 40% of the fuel to the allies during WW2. The British PM Winston Churchill and the US President Franklin Roosevelt stated that “Nortraship is worth more for the Allied cause than a million soldiers on the ground”
kJ9D4 TIL in 1914 student William Bowlus and several other upperclassmen entered a freshman's room to haze the occupants, however one of the five freshman in there shot Bowlus in the abdomen, killing him. But the men refused to identify which one had fired the shot and a grand jury declined to indict.