› added 9 years ago

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TIL of a monk who had taken an old book written by Archimedes, erased the contents, and wrote over it with prayers. Scientists have determined that that monk erased a previously unknown book by Archimedes, that laid out the foundations of Calculus thousands of years before Newton and Leibniz.

JYym8 TIL that there exist "Ag-Gag" laws in multiple states, which criminalize releasing videos or media of the inside of factory farms. These laws target animal activists trying to expose factory farming conditions, and are justified as trying to protect the agriculture industry.
5NE8 TIL that George Washington warned about political parties being bad in his Farewell Address
5M5B TIL George Aldrich has worked for NASA for over 40 years, and his job is to smell things. This is to ensure that there are no unpleasant smells on ISS and the shuttle. Oh and his nose also gets calibrated and tested every four months.
kOY55 TIL The shortest run for a TV series was 11 minutes. In 1969, a sketch show called Turn-On, by the creator of Laugh-In, was deemed so risqué that at the 1st commercial break of the 1st episode, a network announced it would no longer play the show and instead aired organ music over a black screen.
rRyLe TIL Over two years, during the time of the Great Plague of 1665-6, young Isaac Newton developed a new theory of light, discovered and quantified gravitation, and pioneered a revolutionary new approach to mathematics: infinitesimal calculus