› added 3 years ago

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TIL showers were invented as a deliberately unpleasant treatment to cure the insane

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xRX1 TIL Andrew Jackson was the first sitting president to almost be assassinated. After the first pistol failed to be discharged a second pistol was pulled, that one too misfired. The likelihood of both pistols misfiring was 120,000 to 1.
69LPZ TIL after a boy in the 1930s found what looked like a "great lump of coal", his family used it as a doorstop for a decade until his dad had "a little look at it." This led to the realization it was the world's largest black sapphire. After being faceted, the Black Star of Queensland is 733 carats.
Y78ax TIL One of the earliest archaeological evidence for Confucius' Analects comes from a tombsite dating to ca. 50 BC. in Pyongyang, which was discovered from an accidental leak in 2003. North Korea never released Pyongyang Analects and the other ancient text in China was damaged by fire
vEg4 TIL the Chinese have a version of Bigfoot/Yeti/Sasquatch called the Yeren – and there is Youtube footage of a supposed half-human/half-Yeren from a remote Chinese village
a86xo TIL Tobacco was hailed as a "universal remedy" for hundreds of years in Europe, widely prescribed for dozens of ailments, before its negative effects on health were proven in the 20th century.