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51

TIL of Auguste Piccard, a Swiss physicist who invented a balloon and reached a record altitude of 9.8 miles in 1931. He then redesigned the balloon to be used underwater, and reached a record-breaking depth of 10,335ft in 1953.

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Ax47 TIL autism is not actually on the rise. Studies have shown that the apparent increase in autism cases stems from changes in how physicians define “autism”.
a8Gk0 TIL that Jason Padgett, once a furniture salesman, became a mathematical savant after a brain injury in 2002. Following an assault, he began perceiving complex geometric patterns and fractals, a rare condition called acquired savant syndrome, which led him to create intricate math-based art.
g7B7 TIL in the 1920’s Soviet biologist Ilia Ivanov carried out a series of experiments to create human - ape hybrids. 5 Human women had volunteered to be inseminated with the sperm of Tarzan, a 26-year-old male orang-utan and to carry his babies.
PnGL TIL in the 18th century it was fashionable in England for the wealthy to hire people to live in their gardens as “ornamental hermits”
x6Bkb TIL after a Polish Admiral of German descent Józef Unrug was taken prisoner during WW2, his former Imperial German Navy friends came to visit him. Unrug refused to speak German with them, saying that he had forgotten that language in September 1939 the day Germany invaded Poland