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TIL Scurvy used to be the scourge of the navy, killing sailors on long voyages. Now it's a blight to evolutionary biologists. They just don't know why it exists in humans. It's only in the primates - gorillas, chimps, humans, and a few monkeys - that the body stops producing this necessary vitamin.

LXDp TIL Morgoth, not Sauron, is considered the most malicious evil in Tolkien’s Middle Earth and without him Sauron would not have been able to rise to power
ADRPw TIL "Jump Jim Crow" is a song & dance from 1828 that was done in blackface by white minstrel performer Thomas Dartmouth (T. D.) "Daddy" Rice. The term Jim Crow had become a pejorative term for African Americans by 1838 and from this the laws of racial segregation became known as Jim Crow laws
VBAl4 TIL that in 2019, 3 people who had accused actor Kevin Spacey of sexual misconduct died by suicide, a traffic accident, and an undisclosed cause of death (Reposted to fit rules, no opinions or editorializing)
JYRv8 TIL the tradition of putting Christmas lights up outside started in Denver, CO on Christmas Eve, 1914. D.D. Sturgeon, founder of Sturgeon Electric, wanted to give his ill son some Christmas joy, so he wrapped his pine trees with electric bulbs, which were dipped in red and green paint.
W7ryB TIL of Xingtian, the God of Not Giving up. In Ancient Chinese Myth he fought vs. Huangdi for the title of Supreme God, lost, and got beheaded. However he turned his nipples & navel into eyes & a mouth and resumed battling for the top spot again