Some that I liked:
- At Andrew Jackson's funeral in 1845, his pet parrot had to be removed because it was swearing.
- In the Holocaust between 5.1 and 6 million of Europe's 10 million Jews were killed. An additional 6 million 'unwanted' people were also executed, including more than half of Poland's educated populace.
- On December 20, 1860, South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union. See Also : "Force Bill"
- The peace symbol was created in 1958 as a nuclear disarmament symbol by the Direct Action Committee, and was first shown that year at peace marches in England. The symbol is a composite of the semaphore signals N and D, representing nuclear disarmament.
- The White House, in Washington DC, was originally gray, the color of the sandstone it was built out of. After the War of 1812, during which it had been burned by Canadian troops, the outside walls were painted white to hide the smoke stains.
- Until 1965, driving was done on the left-hand side on roads in Sweden. The conversion to right-hand was done on a weekday at 5 p.m. All traffic stopped as people switched sides. This time and day were chosen to prevent accidents where drivers would have gotten up in the morning and been too sleepy to realize 'this' was the day of the changeover. Ndlr: Another source is claiming 5 am ! (see link)
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