› added 9 years ago

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TIL that Muhammad Ali threw his Olympic gold medal into the Ohio River after he was kicked out of a restaurant for being black.

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e01n TIL that the USA originally denied that atomic bombs caused lingering radioactivity, calling such claims Japanese propaganda. The New York Times ran an article with the headline “NO RADIOACTIVITY IN HIROSHIMA RUIN,” citing only military sources and ignoring eyewitness accounts of radiation sickness.
OGyX TIL that cocaine has more medicinal properties than marijuana, according to the DEA
9V8M TIL Vince Lombardi was very anti-prejudice and once told his assisants, regarding gay player Ray McDonald, “If I hear one of you people make reference to his manhood, you’ll be out of here before your ass hits the ground.”
VBE4m TIL that mathematician Mike Keith wrote a 10,000-word book (consisting of short stories, poetry, puzzles) in which the number of letters in successive words encodes the first 10,000 digits of pi.
9dxX TIL the first known robot was created around 400-350 BC and was a steam powered “pigeon” that was able to fly about 200 meters before it ran out of steam