› added 12 years ago

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TIL that creativity and mental illness are chemical cousins

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Z8rko TIL about the mysterious worldwide epidemic of Encephalitis lethargica. The disease attacks the brain, leaving some victims in a statue-like condition, speechless and motionless. Between 1915 and 1926, 500,000 dead or incapacitated from it. It disappeared as mysteriously as it came in to the world.
J1RJ4 TIL That Henry VIII’s Foot Combat Armour was studied to help develop space suits.
4WMb TIL in 1739 a 16 year old girl in South Carolina was instrumental in creating an economy accounting for 1/3 the value of the colony’s output pre-Revolution. George Washington held her in such high esteem, upon her death he travelled to Philadelphia to be one of her pallbearers.
KOE5J TIL in 2016, "a boy was killed and 20 others infected by anthrax released when retreating permafrost exposed the frozen carcass of a reindeer killed by the bacteria at least 75 years earlier; 2,000 present-day reindeer were infected, too, carrying and spreading the disease further."
v1jBx TIL in 1719 prisoners in Paris were offered freedom at the condition they would marry a prostitute and move to Louisiana.