› added 5 years ago

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TIL that Norman Borlaug, developed new strains of crops which yielded 4x as much food. He is said to have saved the lives of over a billion people, making him one of the most influential men in human history.

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oM67 TIL Teddy Roosevelt was the first president to fly in an airplane and afterwards told the pilot, “that was the bulliest experience I ever had. I envy your professional conquest of space.”
LkY7Z TIL pianist Ian Stewart Co-founded The Rolling Stones, was removed from the band in '63, but still played for them for over two decades, and was their road manager.
eo9L TIL in 1988, a man named Robert W. Faid published a book mathematically “proving” that the Antichrist was Mikhail Gorbachev, with odds of exactly 710,609,175,188,282,000 to 1. He later won an Ig Nobel prize for it.
OvBY TIL Lightning serves an important role in the nitrogen cycle by oxidizing diatomic nitrogen in the air into nitrates which are deposited by rain and can fertilize the growth of plants and other organisms.
j61YQ TIL the hymn 'Amazing Grace' was written by an ex-slave ship captain and slave trader. After finding Christianity later in life he turned his back on the trade and became a prominent supporter of abolitionism. He was also held as a slave himself before escaping.