› added 6 years ago

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TIL the so-called 'Autism Epidemic' isn't an epidemic at all but rather an increase in reported incidents due to a growing awareness of autism and changes to the condition’s diagnostic criteria.

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W7Ya8 TIL about MS St. Louis, a refugee ship that left Hamburg in May 1939 carrying a load of passengers, most of them Jewish refugees bound for Cuba. They were subsequently turned away by Cuba, the US, and Canada. The ship was forced to dock at Antwerp, and the passengers divvied up to various countries.
PYZ8J TIL that in 1987, Ruud Gullit won the Ballon d'Or and dedicated the trophy to Nelson Mandela, who was in jail at the time. When people criticized him for taking a political stance, he explained that to him, it wasn't about politics, but simply a human decision
OoakL TIL that the composer Arnold Schoenberg had a morbid fear of the number 13. On his 76th birthday, an astrologer wrote him a letter of warning reading only "7 + 6 = 13", causing him to fall into a deep depression and illness, from which he died on Friday the 13th.
V1X8 TIL that Clint Eastwood’s two most successful films, when adjusted for inflation, are “Every Which Way But Loose” and “Any Which Way You Can,” two movies that starred Clint Eastwood with an orangutan
OAl6 TIL that the United States consumes 80% of the world’s supply of pain killers. Annually the pain killers kill more Americans than cocaine and heroin combined.