› added 7 years ago

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TIL of "Newton's flaming laser sword, a philosophical razor which states that "what cannot be settled by experiment is not worth debating." It was supposedly named this because it not only "undoubtedly cuts out the crap, [but] also seems to cut out almost everything else as well."

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Jl6k TIL The Radium Girls were factory workers who contracted radiation poisoning from painting watch dials with self-luminous paint. The women were told the paint was harmless, and ingested deadly amounts by licking their paintbrushes; some painted their fingernails and teeth with the glowing paint.
vPjOx TIL in 2021, detailed credentials for more than 21 million mobile VPN app users were advertised for sale online by a cyberthief. The data included email addresses, randomly generated password strings, and payment information, belonging to users of three VPN apps—SuperVPN, GeckoVPN, and ChatVPN
NXblP TIL before 1804, the office of the US vice-president was awarded to runner up to the presidential race
b9mOp TIL that the first recorded use of Forensic Entomology was by Chinese detective in 1200s AD. In a murder investigation in a village, detective Song Ci put every scythe in the village for inspection and found the culprit when flies- attracted to trace amounts of blood- kept landing on his scythe.
7yAb TIL that at one time Pillsbury bought Burger King with the intention of fixing everything that was wrong with the then declining franchise. To turn things around they hired a McDonald’s executive and when his changes were implemented BK took off like a rocket.