› added 12 years ago

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TIL that in 2011 a tiny Spanish town on the brink of financial ruin bet on the world’s biggest lottery, and won.

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via reddit.com

rRd7M TIL that the world's first mental health hospital was built in Baghdad, Iraq in 705 AD. While mental health patients were being condemned, punished, and even burned in Europe, 8th and 9th century mental health patients in Iraq, Egypt, and Syria were given more proper hospitalization and treatment.
Rela TIL that, once, while on a tour bus, Busta Rhymes heard one of the songs on Eminem’s “Slim Shady EP” and got so into the music that he smashed his head on the windshield of the bus, breaking the whole windshield, because he said Eminem’s music was so compelling and powerful.
4k1Qa TIL that scientists used to think bismuth was the heaviest non-radioactive element. In 2003, it was discovered to be radioactive; but its half life is a billion times longer than the current age of the universe.
LDL9 TIL common vaccines used on “hundreds of millions of people” were developed from lung tissue cells of a three month old, female human fetus aborted in Sweden in 1962, and it’s not clear if the mother gave her permission
E1jRX TIL US Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman is responsible for the first-ever recorded mention of a squirt gun in 1865.