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TIL the first successful public demonstration of ether anesthesia took place on October 16, 1846, at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Morton administered ether to a patient undergoing surgery to remove a tumor from his neck, rendering the patient unconscious and insensitive to pain.

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kNnm TIL America is the only country to pronounce Z as Zee, the rest of the english speaking countries say Zed
e07Ak TIL while Richard Nixon was on a trip to the Soviet Union in 1959, high levels of radiation were detected the room he was staying in. Secret Service purposely argued about the radiation and how to handle it in an area they knew the Soviets had bugged. Three hours later, the radiation disappeared.
neGOr TIL that in 1885, James Whitcomb Riley wrote and published a poem called "Little Orphant Allie", based on a little girl he had met named Alice (nicknamed Allie). Due to a typo in the published version, her name was misspelled as Little Orphan Annie, and this name became a much more famous character.
9D4D TIL in Feb, 2000, 60 Minutes did an exposé on “Echelon,” a top secret data collection program that vacuums up vast amounts of communications worldwide. Democracies usually have laws against spying on citizens, but Frost says Echelon members could ask other members to spy on their citizens for them
6nWm TIL that in the Great Depression in the 1930’s, Canada had zero bank failures compared to over 9,000 failed banks in the USA.