› added 6 months ago

24

TIL that In order to avoid being recognized by a previous master, Harriet Tubman once pretended to read a newspaper while traveling by train. The man disregarded the black woman reading on the train since he was aware that Harriet was illiterate.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

lkO7 TIL George Wallace, the famed segregationist governor of Alabama, got his wife elected to subvert term limits. To do so, he hid her cancer diagnosis from her, lest treatment adversely affect her campaign. The only female Governor of Alabama died less than two hundred days into her term.
9wp6B TIL about Janet Stephens, a hair stylist turned hairstyle archeologist. She visited a museum in 2001 and realized historians were wrong about hairstyles on Greek and Roman statues being wigs. She recreated the styles and published her findings in The Journal of Roman Archaeology.
jgRE TIL the Azara’s owl monkey is an “unusually faithful” species. Through 18 years of research and testing, they have been found to be both socially monogamous as well as genetically. 35 offspring born to 17 pairs showed zero cheating for both sexes!
mxDKO TIL of the Metropolitan Sepulchre - A 19th century proposal to build a pyramid in London that would have covered 18 acres, had the capacity for 5 million bodies and at 94 stories and 1500 feet would have been taller than the Empire State Building!
woP41 TIL That the slot in slot in the back of medicine cabinets in older homes was to dispose of used flat razor blades and fall down into the wall