› added 10 years ago

151

TIL that the dispute over whether Newton or Leibniz invented calculus was decided by the Royal Society. Newton, as the President, appointed an impartial committee to decide the issue, which concluded in its official report that Newton was the inventor. Newton was the anonymous author of the report.

Read more www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk

via reddit.com

BrJgL TIL Nala, a beluga calf born to much fanfare one summer at the Vancouver Aquarium died a year later of a "bizarre" condition. Staff discovered that Nala had an abnormal pocket beneath her larynx, or voice box, which contained two stones and a penny
EgOQP TIL the first recorded worldwide manhunt began in 1695 when Englishman Henry Every, "The King of the Pirates", perpetrated the single most profitable act of piracy in history, netting the equivalent of £97m ($118m USD). He disappeared without trace the next year and his treasure was never recovered.
oRpj7 TIL in 1971, an activist group wanted to break into an FBI office to steal draft records. They knew they couldn't pick the lock, so they left a note on the door that said, "Please don't lock this door tonight." It worked.
DQmDV TIL of Atsumi Yoshikubo, a Japanese tourist who vanished while solo hiking in Canada's Yellowknife region. Despite her personal and professional achievements, Atsumi was a deeply troubled woman who apparently wandered off into the Canadian wilderness with no intention of being found. She was.
BrWQL TIL a woman in 2002 almost lost custody of her children seeking financial assistance after genetic testing showed she wasn’t the mother. She in fact exhibited chimerism, or 2 sets of DNA.