› added 13 years ago

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TIL that the Health Minister of South Africa who served for 9 years, actively promoted the treatment of AIDS with garlic, beetroot and African potatoes, while claiming that Anti Retroviral drugs don’t work.

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a8J4o TIL Dateline journalist Keith Morrison was Matthew Perry's stepfather
7rg8O TIL that the word "Nazi" is actually German slang for "backwards peasant", a term that existed before the Nazi party. We used it as an insulting abbreviation the their actual name, Nationalsozialistische. Hitler hated being called a Nazi. Also, the origins of a bunch of other terms.
PJKg TIL famous mathematician Paul Erdos was once challenged to quit taking amphetamines for one month by a concerned friend. He succeeded, but complained “You’ve showed me I’m not an addict, but I didn’t get any work done…you’ve set mathematics back a month”.
P1Mn TIL Enigma (German WWII encryption) was broken in part because operators used guessable passcodes, including letter repeats, adjacent key letters, four letter German names, and obscenities.
P1EYE TIL that towards the end of his life, George III's health had deteriorated so greatly that he was incapable of knowing or understanding that he was declared King of Hanover in 1814, or that his wife died in 1818.