› added 12 years ago

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TIL that Massachusetts’s supreme court was the first to abolish slavery (in 1783), two centuries before it was the first to legalize same-sex marriage

OoXmX TIL that not only can eyeballs be rugby-ball shaped (astigmatism) instead of basket-ball shaped, but one in 2000 people have a cornea shaped like the top of The Gherkin, rather than the O2 Arena. This is called Keratoconus and causes blurred vision, but not blindness.
OGKJY TIL that Nintendo was founded back in 1889 almost 100 years before their video games. They started in Kyoto, Japan making hand-painted “hanafuda” playing cards, then at various points ran a taxi service, made toys, and even owned a "love hotel" before focusing their efforts on video games
OpZg TIL the University of Texas sniper, Charles Whitman, who killed 15 people from a tower in 1966, sought psychiatric help on multiple occasions in the months before his murder spree. He asked in a note that his brain be examined after his death to find what was wrong. A brain tumor was indeed found.
aPPN TIL If two identical clocks were set to the same time, one on top of Mt. Everest and one at sea level, 4.6 billion years ago when Earth was formed, there would be a 39 hour difference between them today due to gravitational time dilation.
v1Xm8 TIL that a convicted murderer swore an affidavit that an innocent man was behind bars for a crime the murderer committed, and that affidavit sat in a safe for 26 years due to the sanctity of attorney-client privilege