› added 4 years ago

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TIL about the Aleutian Islands campaign, or the "Forgotten Battle". Between disease, booby traps, a massive Banzai charge that ended in brutal hand to hand combat and a friendly fire incident instigated by a Canadian soldier, more than 5,800 died in the campaign.

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jNyKX TIL about the power of placebo. In a 2002 study spanning two years, people with osteoarthritis improved equally whether they were given knee surgery or tricked into thinking they received it.
j6evM TIL of the Mawza Exile of 1679 in which the Jews of Yemen were expelled to the desert of Mawza to die of exposure. After 1 year, the exiles were recalled to their homes to resume their work as the remaining Yemeni population was deprived of their usual goods and services during the exile.
Wky79 TIL children can regrow amputated fingertips. In 2016, when a 7-year-old girl's fingertip was torn off, surgeons stuck the tip back on to protect the wound but told the parents that it would likely die. Eight days later it had died, and in its place had grown a perfectly functional new one.
wL5yY TIL that Colombia has a massive Hippo problem because after Pablo Escobar died, his four pet Hippos escaped
4jwJ TIL Gauss personal diaries indicate that he had made several important math discoveries years/decades before his contemporaries published them. Math Historian Temple Bell said that if Gauss had published all of his discoveries in a timely manner, he would have advanced mathematics by 50 years.