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TIL: Punchcards were invented to solve the problem of the 1890 US Census. It took 8 years to process the data of the 1880 census, so Herman Hollerith invented punch cards for tabulation, ushering in the era of data storage, databases, and supercomputers.

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mxXaP TIL that a 74 year old Japanese man dressed as a ninja and burgled 254 homes and stole $260,000 worth of goods before finally being caught by local police.
N8oe TIL an author was once challenged that he couldn’t make a good story from two bad ideas. The ideas given were “Lost roman legion” & “Pokémon”. The resulting book became an international best seller.
xV4QD TIL that in an attempt to resist the reintroduction slavery by napoleon. In Guadeloupe, after finding out that he wont win the battle he and hundreds of his followers blew themselves up by igniting there gunpowder stores, killing many French troops in the process.
yQy9J TIL that chemistry graduate student Barry Kidston gave himself Parkinson's disease after ingesting a compound he synthesized for a legal high. An impurity he neglected is toxic to dopamine neurons, which is responsible for the effect. He was treated, but died of a cocaine overdose 18 months later.
N765Q TIL about Dr. Chester Southam who injected live cancer cells into people with questionable ability to consent, including senile patients under long-term care. He was charged with unprofessional conduct and later went on to become President of the American Association for Cancer Research