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469

TIL in 1589, William Lee was refused a patent grant for his knitting machine after Elizabeth I feared automation would lead to mass unemployment

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Yp1KB TIL that despite popular belief, John D. Rockefeller was not a self-made man. He was born into a modestly propertied family, received a $1,000 loan from his father for his first business (around $30,000 today), and profited immensely off the federal government (i.e. taxpayers) during the Civil War.
x7Dw TIL: Voltaire became hugely wealthy by exploiting a flaw in the French lottery.
xxv0 TIL the tradition of women in Bolivia wearing bowler hats dates back to the late 1800’s when a shipment meant for English workers were too small so they were given to the locals
mxy0M TIL about Sir Henry Head, a victorian English neurologist who conducted pioneering work into the somatosensory system and sensory nerves. Much of this work was conducted on himself, by severing and reconnecting sensory nerves and mapping how sensation returned over time.
wLkeY TIL that WWII ended 5 weeks before a planned Japanese biological attack on San Diego involving plague infected fleas. The idea was developed at Unit 731 which conducted extensive human experimentation, mostly on Chinese prisoners.