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TIL of Hermann Grassmann, an untrained Prussian mathematician who created linear algebra (the central tool of quantum mechanics) 65 years before it found it's use in QM. For most of his life he was considered a crackpot but received an honourary PhD shortly before he died.

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5Y0KB TIL of a sociological theory that posits most Americans are believers of a "civil religion" - which enshrines sacred symbols such as the flag, claims America's prosperity is due to divine providence, and idolizes soldiers and veterans as martyrs for a higher American purpose
Brg7r TIL that at the funeral of General Lamarque, which plays a central role in Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables and was the catalyst of the unsuccessful 1832 June Rebellion, the Marquis de Lafayette was actually a pallbearer and even tried to talk the crowd down before it got out of hand.
QJXGa TIL- The Institute of Cytology and Genetics in Siberia has a 'Monument to the laboratory mouse', to commemorate all the mice that have been sacrificed in the name of science.
8eaaP TIL that after 9/11, On January 5, 2002, Charles Bishop, a high-school student from Florida, United States, stole a Cessna 172 light aircraft and purposefully crashed it into the side of the Bank of America Tower in downtown Tampa, Florida, killing no one but himself in the process
R7mY1 TIL of George Peter Metesky, better known as the "Mad Bomber," who terrorized New York City for 16 years in the 1940s and 1950s with explosives that he planted in theaters, terminals, libraries and offices.