› added 10 years ago

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TIL that between 2003 and 2008, the US government spent over $15,000,000,000 on AIDS prevention in Africa, saving an estimated 1.1 million lives and reducing AIDS infection rates by 10%

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5YkAD TIL This tower in Yorkshire is the tallest folly in the world. It was erected by John Edward Wainhouse and was originally going to be a mill chimney but was converted into a viewing platform to look over a private garden because of a neighbour's feud.
m1Jev TIL that not only is the text of the original Draconian laws lost to us, but also that is was merely a codification of preexisting oral law and that it wasn't in fact extraordinarily harsh for those times
5Y5x9 TIL: The “Imp of the Perverse” is the term for random thoughts or a person’s impulse to do something crazy like drive off a bridge.
gMR49 TIL about the Glirarium, a Roman jar with holes in it, made for keeping and forcing mice to hibernate for a while, which made them fatter before eating them, making them more tasteful
aw9b0 TIL scientists found a medieval salve made out of wine, garlic, onion and oxgall which must be put in a brass vessel for nine nights to become an antibiotic that is potent against MRSA.