› added 1 year ago

58

TIL that some New England towns had a tradition of electing a black representative, where slave owners would grant a day off for slaves to participate in the festivities. These officials often served as parodies of elected white leaders, but others acted as reputable liaisons in race relations.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

4M5J TIL When making The Incredibles, director Brad Bird intentionally used artists who were likely to either quit or be fired from Pixar; because he believed only they could create everything that he needed.
dLB7 TIL: A scientist let a computer program a chip, using natural selection. The outcome was an extremely efficient chip, the inner workings of which were impossible to understand.
W7Gw8 TIL that “jalapeño hands” is a burning sensation that is caused by cutting up jalapeño peppers with bare hands, and it can last from a few hours to a few days. Capsaicin oil in the peppers irritates the affected skin until it fades away or is neutralized.
8JYZ TIL multitasking is a myth. What we call multitasking is actually ‘switch-tasking.’ There is actually a stop/start process that occurs in the brain when we switch between tasks. This process causes “more mistakes, and over time it can be energy sapping.”
7woZ TIL that the first c-section was performed by James Barry in 1815, a surgeon with an accomplished military career, who on his deathbed in 1865 it was discovered that he was female