› added 1 year ago

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TIL 20,000 pigs once roamed the streets of New York eating trash

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via reddit.com

X0P5E TIL Two Australians invented the electric drill in 1889! Arthur Arnot and William Brain of Melbourne, Australia. Then in 1895 the first portable drill was made by two German brothers.
ZpDQv TIL Since his father had died 5 months earlier, King Alfonso XIII of Spain became king on the day of his birth in 1886. While only a few minutes old he was presented naked to the Spanish Prime Minister on a silver tray.
LkMYp TIL thanks to the dedicated evaluation by Dr. Frances Oldham Kelsey (a young pharmacologist who had just started working at the Food and Drug Administration), Thalidomide was banned in the USA and worldwide in 1962. The drug caused massive birth defects such as missing ears and flipper limbs.
WL9X TIL that during WWII British soldiers consumed 72 million Adderall and that Methedrine helped the RAF win the Battle of Britain.
xV8x0 TIL December 25 was originally a pagan celebration, Sol Invictus, the “Unconquerable Sun.”