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TIL that the first free black community in the New World, Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, was created by the Spanish government of St Augustine, Florida, in 1738. They began to offer asylum as early as 1687 to slaves of the British colonies, and often fought the British alongside each other.

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e0LxL TIL prior to the Segway being unveiled in 2001 there were months of hype and fanciful predictions. Steve Jobs predicted future cities would be designed around it and others claimed it would be the most important invention since the computer. There was even speculation it was a teleportation pod.
jNRAM TIL that in 1989, Ole Bentzen, a Danish audiologist, who was observing a screening of the 1988 comedy film A Fish Called Wanda, laughed uncontrollably to the point that his heart rate rose to an estimated 250–500 beats per minute, leading to a fatal heart attack
R5kX7 TIL that Harvard University spent $26,000 on a 5' x 5' gatehouse which had to be redesigned over 300 times to meet the requirements of the Cambridge Historical Commission
9AAG TIL In 1965, Bob Dylan said that if he ever sold out to a commercial interest, it would be “ladies garments.” In 2007, he and his music appeared in a Victoria’s Secret commercial.
jNKeX TIL of the "The Norwegian Rocket Incident", when in 1995, Russian officials briefly misinterpreted a Norwegian scientific rocket to be a nuclear attack. It showed the dangers of accidental nuclear war even when the threat of military confrontation between the US and Russia was at an all-time low.