› added 9 years ago

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TIL that the cloth headrest/cover on a train or airline seat is called an antimacassar, and is so called as its original purpose was to prevent the macassar oil used by Victorian men as hair gel from damaging the fabric.

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OovvL TIL that Immanuel Kant promoted "scientific" racism, giving a hierarchy of four races: white Europeans "always advance to perfection", yellow Asians "can never reach the level of abstract concepts", black Africans "can be educated but only as servants", and red Amerindians "cannot be educated"
MWp8 TIL I learned that Jack MacDonald (A 98 year old secret Philanthropist, war veteran and lawyer) Lived the life of a poor person and saved all his money to donate to charity after his death. He donated 188 million dollars to 3 Washington institutions after his death at age 98.
Br8pK TIL John Tyler, the tenth president of the United States, has two living grandchildren. John Tyler was 63 when his son Lyon was born (1853). Lyon was 71 when Lyon Jr. was born (1924) and 75 when Harrison was born (1928). They are both alive today.
1apoX TIL that in 2017, the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber allowed schools to stage their own version of his new musical ‘School of Rock’ for free, in a bid to tackle what he sees as a decline in arts education.
694YY TIL: In 1962, a bear caused a false alarm at a US air base and almost caused nuclear war