› added 10 months ago

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TIL The seven-day weekly cycle (Sunday→Monday→Tuesday→Wednesday→Thursday→Friday→Saturday) has remained unbroken since ancient Rome.

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9YrmQ TIL A 14-year-old visited a Chinese hospital with stomach pains after experiencing constipation for five days. Doctors believe that she drank so much bubble tea that about a hundred tapioca pearls built up in her body, causing a blockage
b6oKp TIL Sumerians counted with the 3 knuckles of the 4 upper fingers on one hand, then tracked groupings with all 5 fingers on the other hand. This is why seconds and minutes are still measured sexagesimally (base 60 = 3 x 4 x 5)
X0AN8 TIL the population of vultures in South Asia has decreased by 99.95% since the 1990s. Researchers discovered the culprit to be an anti-inflammatory drug, Diclofenac, which was being commonly administered to livestock. This represents the sharpest rate of decline of any animal known to man.
4ka6g TIL that during the Cephalonia massacre in WWII, after executing most of the Italian officers that had surrendered to them, the Germans forced 20 Italian sailors to take the bodies out to sea in rafts. They then blew up the rafts with the sailors still on them.
4XdG6 TIL of Ruth Coker Burks aka the "Cemetery Angel" who at the height of the AIDS crisis put up her own money to take care of and buy medicine for AIDS patients and buried over 40 people in her family's cemetery plot, most of whom were gay men whose families would not claim their ashes.