› added 6 years ago

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TIL that 'decimate' is actually a reference to the roman practice of punishing large groups of people (e.g. battalions that performed poorly) by dividing the cohort into groups of ten, having each group cast lots, and have the nine individuals kill the single unlucky individual in each group.

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JA7B TIL of the first ever man cured of HIV. Timothy Brown was living with HIV when he was diagnosed with Leukaemia. He received a blood stem cell transplant using a donor with a rare HIV resistant gene. Today he is HIV negative.
WoVo TIL that after extensive analysis of charts, currents, video, photographs, interviews, and witness statements it was shown that the Star Princess, a Princess Cruise Ship, did not leave three men adrift in the sea.
Z8VD4 TIL in 2011, Conan O'Brien was ordained as a minister by the Universal Life Church Monastery, allowing him to perform a same-sex marriage in New York. The wedding, between a member of Conan's staff and his partner, was held on the stage of the Beacon Theatre and broadcast on Conan.
l7Boa TIL that the song “I Just Had Sex” by The Lonely Island is played “unironically” in public in countries such as Vietnam and Thailand; bandmate Akiva Schaffer noting “The nuance…would be lost if English wasn’t your first language”
WkgBN TIL Floyd Paxton was eating complimentary nuts and realized he didn’t have a way to close them if he wanted to save some for later. As a solution, he took out a pen knife and hand-carved the first bread clip out of a credit card. His company, Kwik Lok, produces billions of bread closures a year.