› added 7 years ago

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TIL the last male Northern white rhino joined Tinder

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nWkN9 TIL the artillery officer of France declared "I've got more guns than I need" before the Dien Bien Phu battle, but he soon committed suicide after outgunned by the Vietnamese
Z8YQa TIL about a species of human that grew no larger than a modern 3-year-old child and lived on a remote island in Indonesia 18,000 years ago. These humans lived alongside Homo sapiens. They manufactured sophisticated stone tools, hunted elephants, and more, all with a brain only 1/3 the size of ours.
rREEd TIL there is a mathematical "game" called the homicidal chauffer problem, in which a driver in a fast but slow-turning car tries to run over a slower pedestrian who has more freedom of motion. It is used to improve missile guidance systems.
dDLLd TIL: At the height of the Roman Empire, it's GDP was estimated to be worth $32 billion today. The average roman soldier makes $3.25 a month, but were given large sums from looting while their officers made $10,000 a month. Interestingly, professors in academia were better paid than modern teachers.
ANkn7 TIL that Rasputin's efficacy at treating Alexei Nikolaevich's hemophilia is theorized to be due to his forbidding the use of aspirin for the boy. Aspirin, at the time, was prescribed for a myriad of ailments, but its anti-clotting effect—very adverse for hemophiliacs—was not known until much later.