› added 2 years ago

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TIL George Orwell was born in British India, in the current state of Bihar

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via reddit.com

ep9Jg TIL about the 1900 English beer poisoning. More than 6,000 people in England were poisoned by arsenic-tainted beer. It took 4 months to be noticed, with doctors initially misdiagnosing it as alcoholic neuropathy
4kaZa TIL that under the Invention Secrecy Act, the U.S. government can prevent certain patent applications from being disclosed if they deem the invention a threat to national security. Inventors can be prohibited from sharing or profiting from their own creations without even knowing why.
BrKDy TIL George Harrison from The Beatles fronted money for Monty Python’s “Life of Brian”
VB5ZG TIL: In the "Battle of the 300 Champions" between Sparta and Argos in 546 BC. Rather than wasting the lives of their armies, both agreed to use 300 men and sent the rest home. 2 Argives and 1 Spartan survived. The Argives left thinking they won, so technically the Spartan was the last man standing.
QJE6p TIL Xerxes the Great ordered the Hellespont strait be whipped 300 times after a bridge being constructed over the strait collapsed during a storm. The second attempt to build the bridge was successful.