Astronomer Percival Lowell believed that he was the first person to observe canals on Venus, but because of a faulty adjustment of the eyepiece on his telescope, he was in fact looking at the blood vessels in his own eye.
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In 2011, a couple bought a box of textbooks for $10. Inside, they found a 25-cent bill signed by the president of the Republic of Texas, Sam Houston, and subsequently sold it for $63,250.
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A man named Heraclitus had an illness that made his body swell up with water. To try to sweat it off, he buried himself in a steaming pile of animal poo, but then overheated and died of dehydration.
18
20 years ago, there were only 130 websites, Google wasn't around, and you had to pay for an email account through an ISP.
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When Charles Darwin first discovered the Galapagos Tortoises, he tried to ride them!
18
Daniel Webster, who ran for president and lost three times, declined the Vice Presidency twice, thinking it a worthless office. Both presidents who offered it later died in office, meaning that if he had accepted, he would’ve become president after all.
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