› added 7 months ago

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TIL it used to be believed that babies as old as 15 months couldn't feel pain. As a result, doctors would preform surgery without anesthesia. Doctors used muscle relaxants on the infants to prevent squirming, essentially paralyzing the babies for the duration of the procedure.

rNVOx TIL Tom Leykis, who was a famous radio talk show host in the Los Angeles area, was originally cast to play Dr. Marvin Monroe on The Simpsons, but was subsequently fired before the show aired.
EEO0 TIL Alfred Nobel invented dynamites. And when he was mistakenly declared dead in 1888, newspapers published obituaries that stated that “the merchant of death is dead.” Ashamed to leave such a legacy, he left the money he made from dynamites to celebrate humanity; thus created the Nobel Prize.
0wVJL TIL that in 1523, Christian II of Denmark was succeeded by Frederick I, who was succeeded by Christian III, who was succeeded by Frederick II and so on till 1972, when Queen Margarethe succeeded her father to the Danish throne. For 449 years, the Danish king was either named Christian or Frederick.
p8wpZ TIL "breaker boys" between age 8-12 were employed to work 10 hours a day, 6 days a week to separate impurities from coal. Despite public disapproval, the practice of employing children in this line of work lasted for decades, only finally ending in the US in the 1920s.
V1ZZ TIL that in June 2012, the U.S. town of Boring, Oregon accepted the proposal of Dull, Scotland to “pair” their municipalities, in an effort to promote tourism in both places as a play on their names