› added 2 years ago

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TIL historians don't know why important warlord Ivar the Boneless was called "boneless." Theories range from him losing a leg to impotence & beyond.

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b6R1p TIL in the 18th-20th centuries in Britain STD patients would be 'quarantined' in a facility called a "Lock hospital," a hospital designed to treat STD victims; originally used to house victims of leprosy.
jNZ7n TIL of Hermann Grassmann, an untrained Prussian mathematician who created linear algebra (the central tool of quantum mechanics) 65 years before it found it's use in QM. For most of his life he was considered a crackpot but received an honourary PhD shortly before he died.
7dAZ TIL: In 18th century England, umbrellas were strictly taboo and seen as a detestable, effeminate contraption. Cab drivers saw them as a threat to their business and grew violent towards umbrella owners.
JYLml TIL that in 2003 Brandon Vedas live-streamed his own drug overdose & death while people told him to take more on IRC chatroom. One of his last sentences, as he took more, going unconscious and dying, was: "I told u I was hardcore". His mother was in the next room, thinking he was asleep.
jjrX TIL a 15-year-old blind kid was able to use his enhanced hearing to hack telephone systems by perfectly reproducing dial tones. He even went as far as faking calls to the SWAT team in order to have them surround the houses of his enemies.