› added 2 years ago

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TIL A German man spent years in a mental institution for claiming that his ex-wife and the bank where she worked were involved in a massive money laundering scheme. The accusations turned out to be true, and the plot to have him committed was part of a conspiracy to silence him.

D7xV TIL that during the 1904 Summer Olympics Marathon, a Cuban postman who arrived last minute came in 4th despite running in street clothes that he cut into shorts and falling ill after eating rotten apples during a break he took in an orchard.
xVeG0 TIL Being overweight literally makes you dumber. As body weight increases patients do worse and worse on learning and memory tests. Obesity also literally shrinks the physical size of the brain, damages the areas used for creativity/imagination, and raises the risk of dementia.
JYg1v TIL in 1977, Argentina flew a pregnant woman to their military base in Antarctica so she could have first baby to ever be born on the continent. In doing so, the Argentine government believed this would give them an undisputable claim on the land, but the claim is not recognized internationally.
yQVjp TIL a Colorado company is building a passenger supersonic aircraft and will start testing next year. Estimated flight time from London to New York in 3h15m.
QJdO6 TIL the saying "to work up an appetite" originated from back when people would become hungry as the result of physical labor AND THEN consume food. Wow, the more you know! These days, I've just been saying, "Man, I really jerked up the ability to binge-eat an entire carrot cake."