› added 6 years ago

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TIL that just about 90 years ago, humans believed that there's only one galaxy (ours) that's surrounded by infinite dark space. Today we know there are at least 400 Billion galaxies, some visible to the naked eye.

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via reddit.com

OooJR TIL that a New Zealand school generated controversy over a possum-tossing contest. Students would shoot the possums (an invasive pest in New Zealand) and then see how far they could chuck the marsupial's carcasses.
xVlb7 TIL the band 'Rockbitch' would throw a golden condom into the crowd during performances, whoever caught the condom could have sex with several members of the band backstage
Z8aRp TIL about Violet Hilton, a conjoined twin who suffered the gruesome fate of dying of the flu 2-4 days after her twin Daisy had already succumbed.
NXpKb TIL: The pacemaker was invented when an engineer accidentally pulled the wrong resistor from a box and realized it could regulate a heart.
9Yoyr TIL that when Isaac Newton was removed from school due to his interest in personal pursuits rather than studies, his mother tried to make him a farmer. Newton's hatred for farming and some persuasion from a schoolmaster led him to finish school aged 18 and enter Cambridge University a year later.