› added 11 months ago

35

TIL about fatal familial insomnia (FFI), an extremely rare brain disease that causes the victim to lose their ability of sleep permanently, resulting in death

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jvZN TIL That Research has Shown that Spoilers Increase your Enjoyment
6EX1w TIL emperor Hirohito offered to order all the Japanese to convert to Christianity to end the imperial religion, but general MacArthur refused, saying it would be wrong to force a whole nation to convert.
VlrG TIL that in response to a rebellion in the province of Uva in 1818, the British government killed every male 18 or older.
rEg4 TIL Christopher John Boyce was a convicted spy for the Soviet Union sentenced to 40 years in prison. In 1980, he escaped federal prison and was on the run for 1yr and 8 months, during which time he committed 17 bank robberies and studied aviation so he could eventually flee to the Soviet Union.
Y79Yv TIL "I've Never Met a Nice South African" was a 1986 anti-apartheid song where the songs narrator states that despite the numerous unlikely things they've seen they've never met a nice South African. The chorus has South Africans describing themselves as "arrogant bastards who hate black people"