› added 11 months ago

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TIL that the island of Ocracoke, North Carolina was the location where the pirate Blackbeard died on November 1718.

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69ML8 TIL about the Luhn algorithm or Luhn formula, also known as the "modulus 10" or "mod 10" algorithm, named after its creator, IBM scientist Hans Peter Luhn - a simple check digit formula used to validate a variety of identification numbers including credit card numbers.
kOQPd TIL Betty Shabazz, wife of Malcolm X, was killed by her own twelve-year-old grandson in 1997. Wanting to return to his mother, who was in treatment as part of a plea agreement for plotting to kill Louis Farrakhan, he set his grandmother's apartment on fire. She died weeks later of her injuries.
XErPQ TIL that Ursula K. Le Guin once rejected an offer from Hayao Miyazaki to adapt her Earthsea series for the screen, but changed her mind after watching Miyazaki's film My Neighbor Totoro
e05Qn TIL the term "Playboy" was initially popularized by the life of Harry Kendall Thaw, a millionaire sociopath and mentally ill railroad heir who spent money lavishly to fund his obsessive partying, drug addiction, abusive behavior (including murder), and gratification of sexual appetites.
7reJP TIL the so-called 'Autism Epidemic' isn't an epidemic at all but rather an increase in reported incidents due to a growing awareness of autism and changes to the condition’s diagnostic criteria.