› added 10 years ago

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TIL that salting fresh pineapple reduces the “acid burn” effect you get after eating too much of it (and it makes the pineapple taste sweeter)

wL45W TIL Andrew Jackson’s wife was attacked as an adulteress and then died during the 1828 Presidential election after falling into deep depression. At her funeral Jackson said, “May God Almighty forgive her murderers. I never can."
EoPW TIL Anthony Graves spent 18 years on death row for a crime he did not commit. The State of Texas owes him $80,000 per year of false incarceration, BUT has evaded paying him due to a technicality on a form.
dDaAQ TIL Kepler predicted that Venus' diameter is almost a quarter of the Sun's diameter, so Mercury should have a tenth of the Sun's diameter. Pierre Gassendi saw the true size of Mercury in 1631 during its transit across the Sun, and was surprised by how small it was as it looked like a sunspot
PWre TIL that a 1984 study showed that hospital patients assigned to rooms with windows looking out onto scenes of nature had shorter recovery times, were better behaved and required fewer painkillers than patients assigned to rooms with windows facing brick walls.
geQA TIL that Wilhelm Furtwängler, a leading German conductor, called Hitler a “hissing street pedlar” and an “enemy of the human race”. He also refused to give the Nazi salute, wrote public letters denouncing antisemitism, and once got into a shouting match with Hitler over Nazi cultural policy.