› added 10 years ago

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TIL that the word quarantine is derived from the days of the Black Plague when ships entering Venice were forced to anchor offshore for forty (or quaranta in Italian) days before being permitted to unload

Read more cdc.gov

via reddit.com

nXA9 TIL The Two Oldest Cats on record lived to 38 and 34 years old, both were owned by the same owner and lived off a diet of bacon, eggs, broccoli and coffee.
ZplpD TIL that Minecraft was released 15 years ago on May 17th, 2009.
vPjb7 Today I learned the largest weight lost ever is held by Khalid bin Mohsen Shaar, who lost a total of 1,195 pounds! Starting at 1,340 pounds (610kg) and ending at 150 pounds (68kg)! He’s listed as the 2nd heaviest human ever at his heaviest.
Ox47 TIL There is a 100-year-old woman still teaching math at her elementary school in Brooklyn
b9G8E TIL that the Oscar-winning screenplay for Sense and Sensibility (1996) was almost lost due a bug on Emma Thompson’s computer. Desperate, she asked her longtime friend Stephen Fry for help, who spent seven hours recovering the script.