› added 9 years ago

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TIL A woman correctly detected 11 out of 12 subjects in a Parkinson’s study using her sense of smell. 8 months later the one extra she believed had Parkinson’s was diagnosed with the disease making her 12/12

D1XGg TIL in 1800s, freed African-American slaves were helped to migrate to Liberia to escape oppression into a country of their very own, where they immediately established an apartheid upon their native African cousins, treating them the same way they were treated by their white oppressors.
jbpp TIL of “learned helplessness”, when an organism has endured enough averse stimuli which it was unable to escape or avoid, it gives up and becomes unable to learn escape in the future, even in situations where such behavior would be effective
KO9xw TIL that the Japanese word "kamikaze," meaning "divine winds," was originally used to refer to the typhoon that all but completely destroyed the Mongol fleet (hastily built by their Chinese and Korean vassals), effectively preventing the second and last Mongol invasion of Japan, in 1281.
D14Xg TIL Victor Klemperer, Jewish KZ inmate and post-war professor of German literature, wrote a book which analyses how nazis introduced a nearly Orwellian kind of German language. Examples are "crisis" for defeat, "connection" (Anschluss) for annexation, and "enhanced interrogation" for torture.
OVV7 TIL that getting annoyed at someone when we listen to them eating or breathing is called Misophonia, and it’s an actual neurological disorder.