› added 5 years ago

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TIL of Eva Saxl, a diabetic woman who synthesised her own insulin in a basement during WWII, saving not only her own life but the lives of over 200 people in the Shanghai Ghetto who would have died when legal insulin became unavailable

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4yRJ TIL ¼ of the world thinks the USA is the greatest threat to world peace
ADDn4 TIL that in 2003, during a case involving stolen lunar samples,a federal court set the value of the moon rocks at $50,800 per gram based on how much it cost the U.S. government to retrieve the samples between 1969 and 1972.
d8GlK TIL that the largest pumpkin ever grown in the US state of Massachusetts was in 2020, by Charles M. Lieber, a Harvard chemist convicted of not disclosing ties to the Chinese government, as well as not reporting associated income from this work
GY4D4 TIl that the first use of the 'temporary insanity defense' in the U.S. WAS WHEN IN 1859, a Congressman SHOT AND KILLED a man who was having an affair with his wife. THE man killed was Philip Barton Key II,SON OF THE STAR spangled Banner author Francis Scott Key.
Wk1eA TIL, the earliest form of smallpox immunization was used in China in the 1500’s. Doctors would take ground up scabs from people with mild cases of the disease, and blow the material into their nostrils. This lead to a mild version of the disease which had a mortality rate of ~2%.(20-30%if untreated)