› added 4 months ago

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TIL artist Dean Cornwell submitted three entries for a competition to paint the rotunda of the Los Angeles Public Library, one under his real name and two under fake names. Cornwell won the competition with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place.

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Wk0j4 TIL that in the 90s, the US was first to develop an assay to test for HIV contaminated blood products. France refused to adopt the test because it wasn't French and delayed testing until their version came out, resulting in thousands of hemophiliacs being infected with HIV.
9YA4D TIL that a Carl's Jr. in Santa Rosa, California, untouched by surrounding wildfires, caught fire when staff made 165 hamburgers for first responders.
5oDk TIL in 1947 boxer Sugar Ray Robinson backed out of his welterweight championship fight because he dreamt that he would kill his opponent, Jimmy Doyle. After a minister convinced Robinson to fight, Doyle died after never regaining consciousness from one of Robinson’s punches.
0KK1 TIL that the USSR renamed its rocket base Baikonur in 1961 to keep the Soviet space program a secret. Residents of the original Baikonur, hundreds of km away, took advantage of the resulting confusion by ordering many valuable supplies for themselves before the scam was discovered.
nWBmB TIL Richard Dedekind, who worked with Georg Cantor on infinite sets, was an exceptional mathematician but he never went beyond being a high school teacher in his hometown. Cantor wanted to enter University of Berlin but was prevented from doing so as his new branch of mathematics was rejected