› added 1 year ago

467

TIL that there is a rare parasitic disease called Guinea Worm Disease that causes blisters so painful that people seek cool water to alleviate the pain, also allowing the worm to release larvae. The painful blisters led to this worm's nickname of "fiery serpent."

Read more npr.org

via reddit.com

rRoBw TIL of Sonya Golden Hand, a Russian female con artist who committed several carefully planned robberies and stole tens of thousands of rubles. She was eventually captured and exiled to a penal colony. She was moved into solitary confinement after trying to escape the colony dressed as a guard.
ADXon TIL that songwriter Esther Dean composed “S&M” for Rihanna, then was later cast as Cynthia Rose in the Pitch Perfect movies. This means in the “riff-off” scene in the first movie, Esther got to sing her own song, but as a completely different person. Full circle.
XVBX TIL: Huddie Ledbetter also known as “Lead Belly” was convicted on charges of murder and attempted murder, Lead Belly literally sang his way to freedom, receiving pardons from the governors of Texas and Louisiana. He would eventually be inducted into the Rock-N-Roll hall of fame.
b9Kkp TIL of the death of Captain James Cook, the first European to discover Hawaii. When Hawaiian natives stole one of Cook's longboats, he attempted to get it back by kidnapping their chief. This almost succeeded, but after discovering Cook's plot, the angry natives clubbed and stabbed him to death.
j6oKE TIL I Am a Cat is a satirical novel written in the early 1900s about Japanese society during the Meiji period, particularly the uneasy mix of Western culture and Japanese traditions. It is told from the perspective of an anthropomorphized domestic cat who is a regular house cat of a teacher.