› added 4 years ago

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TIL that Isaac Asimov died from complications of HIV. In 1983 got HIV from a blood transfusion during heart surgery. His doctors told him to keep it quiet. 10 Ten years later, after most of Asimov's physicians had died, Asimov's family agreed that the HIV story should be made public.

vZBR TIL Daniel Webster, who ran for president and lost three times, declined the Vice Presidency twice, thinking it a worthless office. Both presidents who offered it later died in office, meaning that if he had accepted, he would’ve become president after all.
W79r8 TIL That Grace Hopper, one of the very first women to ever work on a computer, came-up with the idea of using regular, English words to program a computer, due to her post-WWII experience trying to sell computers to the general public.
GYlPE TIL Army ants can accidentally misinterpret the chemical trails left by other ants and start walking in circles. If too many members of the colony join in, it can kill the whole colony in what is sometimes known as the 'Death Spiral.' or 'Ant Milling.'
0wYE5 TIL the song 'That's All Right', Elvis Presley's 1954 break out song, was a song written and originally recorded in 1947 by Arthur Crudup, a Mississippi Delta blues musician, who based the song largely around a verse in a Blind Lemon Jefferson song from 21 years earlier, called 'Black Snake Moan'
9YGym TIL that the Judean Date Palm was extinct until scientists germinated 2,000 year old seeds to bring the tree back into existence. The seeds were discovered in an ancient jar in Israel, dated between 155 BC to 64 AD.