› added 5 years ago

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TIL of Messiah A. Johnson, an innocent man, who was convicted of robbing a Ghent beauty salon in 1998 and sentenced to 132 years in prison. He was only freed after about 20 years into his sentence by the Innocence Project.

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via reddit.com

XEOv8 TIL that Polynesians may have traveled to the Americas in pre-columbian times. Sweet potatoes originated from the Americas were found in the islands when Cpt. Cook discovered them. The Maori word for sweet potato "kumala" is almost the same as the Quechuan's word "k'umara" for sweet potato.
Z8X8G TIL about Scheele’s Green, a popular pigment in the 1800s made with deadly arsenic. One famous death was of a flowermaker, who dusted the pigment onto fake foliage. “She vomited green waters; the whites of her eyes had turned green, and she told her doctor that ‘everything she looked at was green.’”
5YmYp TIL when tickets went for sale for the first Comic Con in 1964, the first ticket was purchased by 15-year-old George R. R. Martin.
16BVr TIL those who have their window rolled down have the best survival odds in the event of a bridge over water collapsing
W7JR4 TIL Katey Sagal of Married with Children father was killed when he turned the wrong way into a helicopter tail rotor