› added 4 years ago

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TIL of chemist Carl Scheele, known for discovering oxygen, molybdenum, tungsten, barium, hydrogen, and chlorine, as well as organic acids, died at just 43 as a result of the cumulative effect of exposure to arsenic, mercury and lead. Despite his discoveries, for years others were given credit.

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OoYZX TIL a total of 2,500 Londoners have been arrested over the past five years for allegedly sending “offensive” messages via social media.
grmlW TIL Calvin Coolidge called Americans and Russians "traditional friends" in his first radio address in December 1923. The Russian Empire supported the Patriots in the American Revolution, and the Union in the US Civil War in the 1700s-1800s.
kOgnd TIL it's possible for a bot to trick the Turing Test into thinking it's human simply by claiming a foreign mother-tongue
6Ejwl TIL In the original book Uncle Tom's Cabin, Tom was actually an honorable man put to death for not telling the location of two escaped slave women. It was only in later adaptations he was portrayed as a house negro and his name became synonymous with being a servile race traitor.
gMxoL TIL: Most Octopus species live between 1 & 2 years because of their reproductive process. Males are often strangled & eaten by females during the mating process. Females die a few weeks after laying the eggs as their bodies self destructs through cellular suicide till she dies.