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TIL The inventor of laughing gas became addicted to chloroform and one day, delirious, rushed out into the street and threw sulfuric acid on people. When his mind cleared and he realized what he had done, he killed himself, blotting out the pain with chloroform.

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XEYg6 TIL in 2016 and 2017 American and Canadian diplomats stationed in Cuba began reporting unusual, unexplained health problems later described in a medical study as "a new syndrome in the diplomats that resembles persistent concussion." The cause of "Havana Syndrome" is still unknown.
9YLJQ TIL Woodrow Wilson gave immense power to his son-in-law William Gibbs McAdoo and appointed him U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and presided over the Federal Reserve
XZa6 TIL that in 1985 Soviets ended a hostage crisis within 4 weeks by castrating & killing a relative of a Hezbollah leader then sending the severed organs. A reporter later said, “This is the way the Soviets operate. They do things - they don’t talk. And this is the language the Hezbollah understand.”
VMakB TIL that a 2019 poll found that only around three in ten Americans enjoy changing the clocks for daylight savings time, while seven in ten would prefer to stick to a standardized time all year.
aa9Z TIL from 1181 to 1218, the Khmer Empire was ruled by a Buddhist king whose primary goal was to alleviate the suffering of his subjects. “He suffered from the illnesses of his subjects more than from his own; the pain that affected men’s bodies was for him a spiritual pain, and thus more piercing.”