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TIL that in the 1800s, mental asylum staff thought it would be a good idea to add a tall stone lookout tower that mentally ill patients could climb up for 'breathtaking views'. Many patients committed suicide by jumping out the tower's open windows.

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geD8 TIL In Japan, death by overwork is so common that they have a word for it, “Karoshi”. Some examples of karoshi are: working 110 hours a week, working 3000 hours a year with no days off in 15 years, working 4320 hours a year, and working 34 hour shifts five times a month.
5Vn0B TIL that since 2011 the first three digits of Social Security Numbers no longer are assigned by geographic location.
yy18 TIL that Nazi eugenics programs had their start in the United States, with research funded by wealthy industrial leaders. A 1912 Carnegie Institute report even recommended the use of gas chambers as a solution to the problem of cleansing society of the poor, non-white, and mentally ill.
Yjgv TIL scientists studied a parrot for 30 years and found he had the intelligence of a five-year-old human. He had a vocabulary of 150 words and could ask for a banana. If he was offered a nut instead, he would stare in silence, ask for the banana again, or take the nut and throw it at the researcher.
J11JV TIL that skunks are immune to snake venom and will eat venomous snakes. Skunks are one of the only animals who have this immunity and are unaffected by doses of venom 100 times higher than those that could kill a household pet.