/f/todayilearned
TIL a sultan of Morocco, Isma‘il ibn Sharif, owned a private army called "The Black Guard" comprised of West African and Haratin slave-soldiers. Considered more loyal than the locals because of their lack of tribal affiliation, Isma‘il's black soldiers formed the bulk of his army, numbering at 150k.
en.wikipedia.orgSubmitted by delano1998 t3_10tw9nu
Submitted by chaoswoman21 t3_10ur0je
TIL that when Jack Grimm tried to find the Titanic in 1980, he planned to take a monkey called Titan that was trained to point to the wreck on a map. The monkey was left behind when scientists objected. Grimm never found the wreck, despite his sonar traveling right over it.
en.wikipedia.orgSubmitted by Bortron86 t3_10tdtyy
TIL in 1985, drug smugglers dropped 40 containers of cocaine from a plane above Tennessee because the plane was too heavy. 3 months later, investigators found the containers and a dead black bear that had consumed 75 pounds of the drug. It’s stomach was “literally packed to the brim with cocaine.”
en.wikipedia.orgSubmitted by LurkmasterGeneral t3_10tm6y5
TIL American writer Jack Kerouac served on SS Dorchester which was torpedoed by a German U-boat on 3 February 1943. Kerouac would have also been on the ship during the attack, but for a telegram he received from coach Lou Little, asking him to return to Columbia University to play football.
en.wikipedia.orgSubmitted by History-Guy111111 t3_10sl9vl
TIL: The massive, multinational tableware company Oneida started in 1848 as a sex cult that invented the term "free love" and featured, among other things, middle-aged women acting as sexual mentors to adolescent boys and a focus on men withholding their orgasm during intercourse (coitus reservatus)
en.wikipedia.orgSubmitted by smrad8 t3_10t59vc
TIL Mount Everest is named after Sir George Everest despite him having zero connection to the mountain (he never even saw it) and against his own wishes. He objected to the naming on the grounds that "Everest" could not be easily written in Hindi nor pronounced by the local people.
en.wikipedia.orgSubmitted by HucklecatDontCare t3_10t3d2m
Submitted by ethereal3xp t3_10sk85f
Submitted by evrydayimbrusselin t3_10rc86o
Submitted by farmer_jays t3_10stt0u
TIL DNA transfer does not only occur "vertically", that is, from parent to progeny. There is also a form of DNA transfer known as horizontal or intracellular DNA transfer, which consists in a piece of DNA being transferred from the genome of one cell to that of another—including between species.
en.wikipedia.orgSubmitted by DioriteLover t3_10qjdzm