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1077

TIL the first dentist who used a common organic solvent we now call "ether" as an anesthetic, William Morton, was castigated by the 18th-century medical community when he tried to patent it/profit from it.

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epl1g TIL When Benjamin Franklin returned to America after having spent nine years in Paris as an ambassador, he was short 100,000 pounds in congressional money. When questioned on this by a member of Congress Franklin waved the question away and the matter was never brought up again.
xVRo0 TIL that military tanks are called tanks because the secret program they were developed under was disquised as being about moving water tanks.
v9NK TIL there is a thought experiment from Plutarch (AD 46 – AD 120) called The ship of Theseus, also known as Theseus’s paradox, that raises the question of whether an object that has had all of its components replaced remains fundamentally the same object.
vPLyr TIL of Ken McElroy, who was shot dead in front of up to 46 witnesses, but nobody was able to be convinced to take the stand due to his reputation and behaviour. The killer has never been prosecuted.
nW5jd TIL The Village People Put out a New Romantic Album in 1980-