› added 5 years ago

72

TIL people were still using the phrase 'abracadabra' in the late 1600s to try to ward off the plague in London

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

GYWyN TIL a Hungarian chemist during WWII hid his Nobel Prize by dissolving it in acid and leaving it on a shelf due to the Nazi ban on its citizens from accepting the Nobel Prize. After the war, he reconstituted the gold from the acid, returned it to Sweden, and got the medal cast again.
kNre TIL of Galvarin, a famous Mapuche warrior during the majority of the early part of the Arauco War. Conquistadors chopped off both of his hands, so he fastened knives to both of his wrists and went back for revenge.
D1laP TIL about the Nazi program to develop nuclear weapons. The program suffered from a lack of scientists, as the politicization of research in Nazi Germany had pushed most scientists to flee to the United States.
DMLJ TIL scientists believe intelligent aliens (when we find them) will likely be huge due to the lower gravitational field found in most planets capable of sustaining life.
9wYEX TIL about Australian voter suppression of First Nation peoples