› added 9 years ago

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TIL that 62.1% of bankruptcies in the US are due to medical bills. Most medical debtors were well educated and middle class; three quarters had health insurance. Unaffordable medical bills and income shortfalls due to illness were common causes.

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dDXmZ TIL: On November 1st, 1755, An earthquake struck Lisbon, Portugal on All Saints Day. Thousands died as churches collapsed. Fire broke out across the city and people fled to the harbor, but there was no water. They started looting the wrecked ships and an incoming tsunami killed thousands more.
16xg7 TIL Stephen Hawking's famous wheelchair was sold at auction for almost 300,000 pounds. Hawking used this wheelchair from the end of the 1980s until the early years of the 1990s, before he became unable to use his hands to drive a wheelchair
dDyQj TIL in the early 60s, the US Coast Guard got letters from the public demanding to know why the castaways on the TV show Gilligan's Island had not yet been rescued.
dGwB TIL that students at Oxford University are required to wear academic dress for all of their examinations - including a suit, gown, bowtie, and colour coded carnation. Students wear different gowns depending on their grades. Cambridge no longer has such dress for exams.
bk07 TIL Babies as young as 9 months know what makes a friend,new research suggests. A study conducted in January in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, shows that babies who are too young to talk still have a set of abstract expectations about the social world.