› added 2 months ago

3

TIL the word “lunacy” originally referred to the ancient belief that madness was caused by the influence of a full moon.

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JYdgk TIL of Operation Snow White: a Scientology project of infiltration & theft from 136 government agencies, foreign embassies, and consulates in more than 30 countries. The largest infiltration of the US government in history, with up to 5,000 covert agents.
BkJb TIL during the Black Plague, some plague doctors were officially commissioned and paid to walk the streets and differentiate between the living and the dead by poking bodies with sticks.
mxl1Y TIL that a Japanese chemical company once polluted a bay so thoroughly that some sediment contained up to 2 kg of mercury per ton. This concentration made mining economically viable, and eventually the company set up a subsidiary to do just that.
OGXQY TIL there's 88 cities/towns named Washington in the US
JY9OV TIL that Chinese Paddlefish, one of the largest freshwater fishes, found mainly in the Yangtze river in China has been declared extinct in the wild after surviving 150 million years on this planet due to overfishing and construction of the Gezhouba Dam.