› added 13 years ago

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TIL nearly 100,000 hemophiliacs around the world were given blood products contaminated with hepatitis C or HIV. Bayer, Baxter and the other companies involved knew the products were contaminated but distributed them anyway. The FDA hushed up the matter and no executives have ever been investigated.

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a80w0 TIL that James Conrad Marshall, killed in the Viet Cong attack on the U.S. Embassy during the Tet Offensive was the first Marine Security Guard to die in defense of a U.S. embassy or consulate.
OWdY TIL that Huntington Hartford inherited the equivalent of $1.3 Billion at age 12, and ended up bankrupt, through a combination of bad business decisions, art patronship, and an exceptionally lavish lifestyle
OoyMY TIL of Busta Rhymes Island, a 40x40 island in Central Massachusetts unofficially named by a local who is trying to make the name official through common usage. When asked why the name "Busta Rhymes Island," the local said "It has rope swings, blueberries, and... stuff Busta would enjoy."
M7y7K TIL of the phrase "I say it's spinach", an idiom meaning "it's nonsense/rubbish" originating from a 1928 New Yorker cartoon captioned "I say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it"
mJ4x TIL that after the xkcd comic “Time” was posted, it spawned a 67000-post, 3300000-views thread whose regulars developed their own Time-based culture, creating their own mannerisms and vocabulary. It got so bad that newcomers to the thread could barely understand the latest posts.