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TIL: In 1863, a professor named William Henry Perkin was trying to formulate a cure for Malaria but instead he inadvertently created the first commercialized synthetic dye.

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R5P1w TIL that Cary Grant’s public praise of LSD therapy in the late 1950s helped pave the way for psychedelics to gain mainstream attention, contributing to their cultural explosion in the 1960s
KOZGQ TIL that Peter Falk lost his right eye at the age of three because of cancer. He wore a fake eye for the rest of his life, which gave him his trademark squint.
WknX TIL in 1970 a disgruntled postgraduate student deliberately infected his roommates with Ascaris suum, a parasitic nematode. This was the first documented human infection by this species.
Wkrvd TIL that Toto (the band who sang Africa) were the studio band for Michael Jackson's album Thriller
g8vb TIL that because Abraham Lincoln grew a beard (at the request of an 11 year old), Milton Bradley’s business of selling lithographs of the clean-shaven presidential nominee failed. Soon after, Bradley developed the boardgame, Life.