› added 5 years ago

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TIL the Olympics used to award medals for arts (literature, architecture, painting etc). Between 1912-1948 a total of 151 medals were awarded - the tradition was brought in because the Ancient Greeks used to hold art events alongside the games.

yVANV TIL that in 18th century Russia there was a black African man called Abram Petrovich Gannibal. Freed from slavery and adopted by Peter the Great as his godson, he reached the status of nobility - with one of his great-grandsons being Alexander Pushkin, one of the greatest Russian writers in history.
PQdg TIL Dua Khalil’s body was exhumed after she was stoned to death in an honor killing and sent to a forensic lab “so that tests could be performed to see whether she had died a virgin”.
y4ep TIL in 1990, Mr. Rogers sued the KKK for impersonating his voice in prerecorded messages. These messages said “AIDS was divine retribution” and included radio skits simulating lynchings of black children on a playground. The tapes were circulated among elementary and middle school children.
XEQPr TIL about people who cannot feel fear due to a rare genetic disorder called Urbach-Wieth disease, which damage the amygdalae in the brain. The amygdala serves as a go-between for the parts of the brain that interpret sensory inputs and those that initiate fearful responses.
7n6x TIL that in 532, a conflict between fans of two different sports teams sparked a riot that destroyed half of Constantinople and killed 30,000 people