› added 10 years ago

180

TIL that when the global food price index rises above 210 worldwide riots breakout.

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QJYPk TIL A roman consul was told before a crucial battle with Carthage that the auguries suggested he shouldn't go to battle, since the chicken didn't eat that day. Wishing to do it any way, he proclaimed "lets see if they will drink", and had the sacred chickens drowned. He fought and lost the battle
8eYoa TIL world-renowned herpetologist Karl Schmidt was fatally bitten by a boomslang (an arboreal African elapid). To get some data out of the situation, he described every symptom in detail almost until the point of death.
yn5e TIL Julia Louis-Dreyfus was pregnant twice during the production of Seinfeld and hid her belly with furniture and laundry baskets
bvJQ TIL that after needing 13 liters of blood for a surgery at the age of 13, a man named James Harrison pledged to donate blood once he turned 18. It was discovered that his blood contained a rare antigen which cured Rhesus disease. He has donated blood a record 1,000 times and saved 2,000,000 lives.
LkxwP TIL that many of Issac Newton's critical insights on calculus occurred while in isolation from the Great Plague of London from 1665 to 1666. Newton would later describe this time as "the prime of my age for invention and minded mathematics and philosophy more than at any time since."