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TIL Nicholas Saunderson (1683-1739) lost his eyes to smallpox before he was a year old, yet he taught himself to read by tracing the letters on gravestones and learned languages and mathematics by pricking holes in paper. He became the fourth professor of Mathematics at Cambridge.

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VMDrD TIL that the release of Rise of the Skywalker on Disney+ was set to Star Wars Day (May 4th) in most places, but it was delayed by one day in the Netherlands. May 4th is the anniversary of the surrender of Nazi forces in their country, and it is their equivalent of Remembrance Day or Memorial Day.
v1NJ7 TIL in 1959 a white man from Texas disguised himself as a black man and traveled for six weeks on greyhound buses. After publishing his experiences with racism he was forced to move to Mexico for several years due to death threats.
mxo1R TIL that cows have best friends. In a study to identify factors affecting milk yields, researchers noticed that cows form attachments to specific individuals in their herd. When these cows are together, indicators of stress in both noticeably reduce.
xVB4k TIL that naturalist William Bartram described finding a "painted vulture" during his travels in Florida in the 1770s. No one else has ever found this supposed Florida bird. It's not known exactly what the "painted vulture" was—it could have been a subspecies or relative of the living king vulture.
ob5r TIL George Clinton doesn’t know who played guitar for one of Funkadelic’s greatest guitar solos, “Get Off Your Ass and Jam” (1975). The mystery guitarist was a white heroin addict that asked to sit in and was paid $50.