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TIL the US signed a treaty to convert to metric units in 1878. Instead of converting they changed the definition of all units to their metric equivalent.

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nen6d TIL Matches were originally made with white phosphorus. This caused workers in match factories to get a condition known as phossy jaw which destroys the bones in the jaw. Due to large amounts of deaths and suicides from white phosphorus matches, they started using red phosphorus instead.
oRPV8 TIL that in 1982, a man named Larry Walters attached 45 helium balloons to a lawn chair and flew to 16,000 feet, only intending to fly 10 meters. He landed safely on a power line that broke, causing a 20-minute electricity blackout, and was arrested by the FAA for violating airspace.
woXao TIL that an anonymous medieval textbook on female anatomy, De secretis mulierumm, warned that if a cat ejaculated on some sage, and a man ate some of this sage, he would gestate kittens in his stomach and have to give birth to them by vomiting.
VeJQ TIL of black musician Daryl Davis, who dissolved Maryland’s KKK by befriending its members.
VMeDm TIL In 1942 about 80,000 US citizens were, without any trial, detained in concentration camps by the US itself.