› added 6 years ago

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TIL of John Stevens Henslow, a British priest, botanist and geologist, who, in 1831, was offered a place aboard a voyage to survey South America. After his wife dissuaded him from accepting, Henslow wrote to the captain, telling him to offer his place on the HMS Beagle to his protégé, Charles Darwin

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wLrP8 TIL Butter is yellow because of its natural Vitamin A (source: 2015, HowItsMade)
rZ1d TIL in 1999 Coca Cola invented a vending machine that could adjust its prices based on the temperature, allowing it to hike up the price of a Coke on a hot summer day. Customers denounced the idea, while even Pepsi accused Coke of exploitation
jNaoQ TIL Teddy Roosevelt's son fought in WWI as a pilot, he was killed in a dogfight and his plane crashed behind the enemy lines, the germans gave him a full military burial with honor. Reportedly, they admired that a president's son chose to fight.
nelgW TIL a Chinese method of popcorn-making involves heating kernels in a large cast-iron canister that is then sealed with a heavy lid and turned over a fire rotisserie-style. When the canister is removed from the fire, the seal is released and, with a huge sonic boom, all the kernels explode at once.
R7vr7 TIL about Almon Brown Strowger. Strowger's undertaking business was losing clients to a competitor whose telephone-operator wife was redirecting everyone who called for Strowger. Motivated to remove the intermediary operator, he invented the first automatic telephone exchange in 1889.