› added 10 years ago

106

TIL: When General Lee met with his adversary, Grant, to surrender at Appomattox CH. Lee insisted upon his soldiers rights to keep their horses if they had one. Grant agreed understanding that if a former soldier was to return to the farm he had left, he’d need a horse to put the next crop in with.

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wB7Y TIL The common phrase “You can run but you can’t hide” dates back to a taunt made by boxer Joe Louis during his fight against Billy Conn in 1941
wL9XE TIL the richest source of silver in the history of mankind was the Cerro Rico de Potosí in the Andes. Between the 16th and 18th century, 80% of the world's silver supply came out of this mine.
8awoZ TIL that Roman gladiator fights were officiated by referees, and that one gladiator who died in combat even blamed the referee for his death on his tombstone, with the epitaph "Fate and the cunning treachery of [the referee] killed me."
grrX9 TIL Aeschylus, one of the greatest tragedians of ancient Greece, regarded as the father of the genre itself, died after a bird dropped a tortoise on his head, thinking it was a rock to break it open.
kJ6LW TIL Claude Debussy played & recorded piano rolls of his own compositions.