› added 10 years ago

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TIL Carl Sagan has a number named after him. Sagan’s number is approximately 300 sextellion and refers to the number of stars in the universe.

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via reddit.com

7GrO TIL that in the 1950s a Texas white man went through extensive physical changes to become a black man and travel for six weeks on greyhound buses. After publishing his experiences, he was forced to move to Mexico for several years.
loV75 TIL about the Two Headed Boy of Bengal born in 1783. The second head was upside down with the neck pointed straight up. Shockingly, the second head was fully functional. This extremely rare type of parasitic twinning is known as Craniopagus parasiticus, occurring in about 2 to 3 of 5,000,000 births.
KB9Q TIL that George Hotz, then 17 years old, was the first to unlock a first generation iPhone and sold the iPhone for a Nissan 350z and 3 locked iPhones.
XEOeP TIL snake oil was introduced to the US by Chinese laborers who helped build the Transcontinental Railroad. Derived from the Chinese water snake, snake oil was rich in the omega-3 acids that help reduce inflammation and was quite effective, especially when used to treat arthritis and bursitis.
wL6BE TIL that elements within the Japanese Imperial Navy originally planned to assassinate British entertainer Charlie Chaplin during his visit with the Japanese PM in order to provoke a war with the US but Chaplin was not present when the PM was killed.