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TIL: Wat Misaka, a 5'7 point guard of Japanese descent was the first non-white player to play in the nba (1947)

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epPwk TIL that it was common for politicians to bribe voters with gallons of alcohol in colonial America, George Washington lost his first run for the Virginia legislature when he wouldn't pay alcohol bribes, then won his second run when he did.
e0WVD TIL that Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, repeatedly warned Viennas hardline Chief of Staff that continued harsh oppression of the Serbians would eventually draw Austria into a war with Russia and spell the doom of both empires. Neither empire survived World War I.
e05yk TIL In 1971, after LANSA flight 508 was struck by lightening above Peru, 17 year old Juliane Koepcke fell from the sky for two miles but survived. Despite extensive wounds, she walked for 11 days in the rainforest before finding a group of fishermen who helped transport her to a hospital.
0QB1 TIL that a sunburn isn’t skin cells being damaged and dying, it’s the skin cell DNA being damaged and then committing suicide to prevent cancers from growing, in a process called UVB-induced Apoptosis.
97l7 TIL: In 1550’s France, Catherine de Medici was so disgusted by women with “thick waists”, she enforced a ban on them from her court - this lead to the widespread use of the corset throughout western civilization for the next 350 years.