› added 9 years ago

172

TIL That the patterns you see when you close your eyes have a name: “phosphenes”

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gra4X TIL the first mayor of African descent of a Western world capital was Severiano de Hereida, a Cuban-born naturalised French citizen who advocated for the separation of church and state and was an early ecologist. He's also notable as the father of the influential neurophycisist Marcelle de Hereida.
a8pAN TIL undelivered letters from 313AD were discovered in the ruins of a NW Chinese watchtower—one is from a desperate Sogdian (ancient central Asian people) woman named Miwnay, addressed to her husband who brought her to China & left. She & her daughter, now poor, then became servants in a Chinese home
EPDd TIL a mathemetician worked out a formula for perfect parallel parking
wL9RM TIL only 6 percent of obese men know they are obese
NXgnE TIL that the Giants and Dodgers used to be based in New York and Brooklyn respectively. For different reasons they both coincidentally moved to the West Coast around the same time, continuing their same-state rivalry