› added 4 years ago

155

TIL that during the Black Death, the physician to the Papacy recognized that bloodletting was ineffective, but he continued to prescribe bleeding for members of the Roman Curia, whom he disliked. He also claimed that all true cases of plague were caused by astrological factors, and were incurable

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

D1mMr TIL Ethiopia sent troops to the Korean War as part of the UN Command. Known as the Kagnew Battalions, 3,158 men served, of which 121 were killed and 538 wounded. They were never defeated in battle and not a single soldier surrendered. They were also respected for never leaving their dead behind.
RMyQ TIL that two men in Cameroon were each sentenced to 5 years in prison for “looking gay”, after entering a bar together and ordering Bailey’s Irish Cream.
m1GvM TIL of John Darwin, who faked his death in 2002 to escape mounting debts. He avoided detection for five years until he returned to the UK, faking amnesia, to get a passport so he could own property in Panama. His plan collapsed when a photo of him and his wife taken years after his "death" emerged.
gMZ98 TIL: In 1953 when Frank Olson a bacteriologist and CIA employee fell from the window of a NYC hotel room his death was ruled suicide. >2 decades later, his family was awarded a $750K settlement as his death was tied to a top-secret government experiment and some subjects were illegally tested upon.
VBBl0 TIL that Victorians once used leeches to predict the weather.