› added 5 years ago

66

TIL that James McCune Smith, the first African-American doctor, was rejected from all American colleges and had to attend the University of Glasgow in Scotland, where he graduated at the top of his class

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NbQN 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
4kmPw TIL We may have a 50/50 chance of having discovered a planet that is 12.4 lightyears away that supports, and has markers for, at least primitive life already existing
v1m87 TIL that the human-like behaviour of Jenny (an orangutan), a resident of London Zoo, reinforced Charles Darwin's view that man was descended from animals.
oBoNo TIL that bush fires aren’t started on bushes, rather on loose twigs and sticks. Also they are normally started by humans or struck by nearby lightning
9YrMr TIL The programming language Python is named after the BBC show “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” and has nothing to do with reptiles.