› added 1 year ago

55

TIL of Joice Heth who, in 1835, was sold to PT Barnum and took on tour and displayed as the 161-year-old nurse of George Washington

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VM4yk TIL O Canada was originally written in 1880, but it didn't become Canada's official anthem until a century later. In the wake of Quebec's first independence referendum, in which 40% voted to leave Canada, the federal government dumped God Save the Queen and replaced it with O Canada
8j9L TIL wasabi vapour has an effect similar to smelling salts, a property which has been exploited to create smoke alarms for the deaf.
PYoNO TIL About Einstein's "Year of Miracles". In one year he published 3 papers that changed modern physics. The first about the particle theory of light (won him his Nobel Prize), the second led to people accepting the existence of atoms, and the third introduced special relativity (E=mc^2). He was 26.
6v8J TIL: The sun and moon appear to be the same size because of an astonishing coincidence: the moon is 400 times smaller but 400 times closer.
E1LEw TIL Jimmy Buffett is one of the world's richest musicians, with a net worth of $550 million. "Margaritaville Holdings, owned solely by Buffett and his business partner John Cohlan, now umbrellas everything from branded casinos, restaurants, and resorts across the world to[...] Landshark Lager"