› added 8 years ago

923

TIL of James Price, a British alchemist who commited suicide when asked to demonstrate his transmutation skills in public

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

5Vd5Q TIL that in 1984, English grandmother Jane Snowball ordered groceries with her TV remote, sending it through her phone line to her local store. She was the first person ever to shop online.
E1mOw TIL Humans are bioluminescent. Our visible light is 1000 times weaker than what our naked eye can detect. However, images of this glow have been captured by Masaki Kobayashi of Tohoku Institute of Technology, using a specialized sensitive camera.
ep6Ak TIL that after acting as his own attorney and being found guilty, a North Carolina man appealed his conviction on the basis that he did not receive "effective assistance of counsel" (i.e. himself). His appeal was denied.
aZGo TIL that the first African-American whose name appeared on ballots as a candidate for President of the United States was Clennon King in 1960. He was called the Black Don Quixote for his efforts and was committed to an insane asylum in 1958 for applying to the University of Mississippi.
Me8NB TIL The initial 1972 meeting between President Richard Nixon and Mao Zedong was planned for fifteen minutes, but it lasted about an hour. Mao seemed to only want to talk philosophic questions, although Nixon brought up questions like the India-Pakistan crisis, Taiwan, Vietnam, Korea