› added 4 years ago

121

TIL that US started a major effort to count arrest-related deaths between 2003-2011 employing a specialized team of statisticians with US Bureau of Justice Statistics. The program had to be terminated due to poor participation from the states and lack of funding.

Read more theguardian.com

via reddit.com

oWK7 TIL that over 300,000 people in South Africa got needlessly infected with HIV after state officials supported charlatan vitamin treatment instead of “western medical conspiracy”.
v1Wxj TIL in the year 1900, the black plague came to California, causing years of politicians and businessmen denying the existence of any plague while scientists tried to stop its spread. At least 172 people died over the following 8 years. There is still an average of 7 cases every year in the USA.
9YE1M TIL Regis Philbin holds the Guinness World Record for clocking more hours in front of a television camera than anyone else in the history of television
vM4B TIL that Dr Seuss’s first book was rejected 20+ times. He was on his way to burn it when he ran into a college friend who had just been made children’s editor at Vanguard Press. Seuss later said, ‘If I’d been going down the other side of Madison Ave, I’d be in the dry-cleaning business today.’
QjmE TIL of “The Three Boys”,who explored a small cave in Sweden using matches and planks every Sunday. After regularly exploring for two years, In 1948, a stone fell and opened a passage into a much larger cave system, the first hall after the passage was named “The Mountain King’s Hall”.