› added 4 years ago

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TIL that whilst investigating the spread of HIV in Los Angeles and San Francisco, researchers used the letter 'O' to refer a case of someone "outside the state of California". The letter O, however, was interpreted by some readers as the numeral 0. The designation ''Patient Zero'' was born.

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djx9 TIL Pancho Villa’s last words before he died were: “Don’t let it end like this. Tell them I said something.”
0wxLA TIL British livestock auctions still quote price in guineas even though guineas stopped being used in 1816.
erGg TIL that Apollo 13 Astronaut Jim Lovell had a cameo in the movie Apollo 13. He requested to play the captain of the ship that rescues him, because that was the same rank he held when he retired from the Navy
EYR7 TIL Thomas Paine, the man who inspired American independence, “was violently opposed to all international war, which he considered a conspiracy to subjugate and defraud peoples”
J1pP8 Today I learned that beluga whales have squishy heads that assist with echolocation (credit: Randomness-youtube)