› added 8 years ago

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TIL drug overdoses from opiods increased 14% in 2014, killing 40,000 people. This is an increase of 137% since 2000. More people die from drug overdoses, says the CDC, than in road accidents: just under 33,000 people died in traffic accidents last year in 2014.

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9wKBM TIL Canadian authorities established D’Arcy Island as a leprosy colony, where mostly Chinese men were quarantined and left to die between 1891 to 1924
b9XL0 TIL that a man living in a high crime area of Oakland, CA put out a tiny statue of Buddha in an attempt to stop illegal dumping on his property. The tiny Buddha began getting worshipped by local Vietnamese residents, and eventually crime in the area went down 82%
MPY7 TIL At age 12 and 13, Curtis Jones and his sister, apparent victims of sexual abuse, killed one of their alleged victimizers. Child welfare knew of the abuse, but did nothing. After the murder, the state charged them as adults. Instead of getting help, they got 18 years in prison.
awB1A TIL of the micromort, a unit of risk defined as one one-in-a-million chance of death. Travelling 10km on a bike, 400km in a car, and 10,000km via jet all expose you to 1 μmt of risk. Simply existing at age 90 exposes you to 300 μmt a day.
lodmr TIL of the Stockbridge Militia, a Native American military unit from Stockbridge, Massachusetts, which was the first group of Native Americans to fight for the cause of American independence during the Revolutionary War.