› added 6 years ago

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TIL Gary Gygax's wife was convinced he was having an affair so she followed him to a dimly lit basement and burst into the room only to find him and his friends hunched over hand-drawn maps. Gary would go on to invent the role-playing game "Dungeons and Dragons".

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0X9L TIL in 1953, Ronald Maddison, a 20-year old Royal Air Force engineer died while acting as a guinea pig for sarin gas testing at Porton Down, England. Maddison was offered 15 shillings for the experiment, which he planned on using to buy an engagement ring for his girlfriend.
R7XDQ TIL gin and tonic was invented to make antimalarials more palatable
yVXRX TIL about Alpha-gal Syndrome. A serious, Sometimes life threatening condition, Where you can develop an allergy to red meats and other products made from mammals after being bitten by a Lone Star Tick.
0Q5N TIL during a kidney transplant the damaged kidneys are generally not removed, the new kidney is simply placed in a different location.
BrKBx TIL that the word ‘quarantine’ comes from 14th century (Venetian dialect) Italian ‘quaranta’ meaning 40, which was the number of days a ship had to stay off shore if suspected to have infections on board. Fitting.