› added 6 years ago

354

TIL about Mary Mallon, an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid, who spread it in New York city in the 1900s. Dr. George Soper discovered every establishment she worked in as a cook had an outbreak of typhoid and warned her to wash her hands but she ignored him and continued to spread it all over the city

WBO8 TIL there is a theory which says that the evolutionary path that lead to intelligent life was caused by apes that started eating magic mushrooms.
gM7b TIL that a crucial section of the Quran may have been mistranslated. According to a scholar of ancient Semitic languages, the 72 virgins that await martyrs in paradise are actually 72 white raisins.
R5p51 TIL of Bartolomé de las Casas, a 16th century Spanish priest who, in order to alleviate the suffering of Indigenous slaves in Spanish America, advocated using African and European slaves for at least most of the labor involved.
jQJN TIL of the Martha Mitchell effect, where a psychiatrist considers an unbelievable story delusional, but it turns out to be true. Named for the alcoholic wife of Nixon’s attorney general, called mentally ill after reporting illegal behavior by the administration
grEjL TIL the original LEGO building bricks were based off a building toy made by British company Kiddicraft in 1947. LEGO started selling their redesigned version in 1949. In the late '50s LEGO contacted Kiddicraft to ask if they objected to LEGO bricks. They did not, and wished LEGO good luck with them.