› added 6 years ago

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TIL of Jeremiah Hamilton, 19th Century New York's notorious African-American, Wall Street millionaire. Blacklisted by the city's insurance firms and Public Stock Exchange, he went on to amass a fortune of $250 million in today's money and was known as the biggest single rival to the Vanderbilts.

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gNn9 TIL Before landing the part of Draco Malfoy, Tom Felton had auditioned to play Harry Potter and Ron Weasley.
9RmX TIL [US only] You can view exactly how much money your doctor has ever received from any pharmaceutical company.
rROoM TIL Jonathan Goldsmith, aka The Most Interesting Man In The World, got his gig by auditioning, where he removed one sock and improvised for 30 minutes straight, concluding with the line "...and that's how I arm wrestled Fidel Castro".
b9mBp TIL Marijuana is legal in Washington DC as a “gift” only. You must purchase something else (like a sticker or T-shirt for example) and you choose your marijuana “gift” to receive.
jNZ7n TIL of Hermann Grassmann, an untrained Prussian mathematician who created linear algebra (the central tool of quantum mechanics) 65 years before it found it's use in QM. For most of his life he was considered a crackpot but received an honourary PhD shortly before he died.