› added 12 years ago

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TIL that Sergeant Stubby was the only war dog to be promoted to sergeant through combat in WWI. He saved his regiment from surprise mustard gas attacks, found and comforted the wounded, and even once caught a German spy by the seat of his pants, holding him there until American Soldiers found him

PJWJ TIL that before being burned at the stake in 1600, Giordano Bruno theorized a universe that was infinite, and that stars were really distant suns.
evX5 TIL that Janet Leigh, Marion Crane in Psycho, was so affected by the shower scene that she no longer took showers unless she absolutely had to. She would lock all doors and windows and leave the shower door open. She never realized until she watched the film “how vulnerable and defenseless one is”.
R7naQ TIL the Bone Wars was a spectacularly dirty, competitive period of fossil hunting, marked by a bitter, destructive rivalry between 2 collectors who used nefarious means to outdo each other incl. spying, bribery & theft. Both were financially & socially ruined by their attempts to disgrace the other.
JYxeV TIL in 1990 Marilyn vos Savant wrote about the "Monty Hall problem" in her column in Parade magazine, correctly answering the statistical brainteaser. Thousands wrote to her to insist she was wrong, including many people with PhDs. Mythbusters even confirmed she was right in a 2011 episode.
vjZD TIL in the 50’s and 60’s Chester M. Southam injected hundreds of innocent women and prisoners at Ohio State Penitentiary with live cancer cells “knowing at the time it might very well cause cancer”, He went onto be the VP of the American Cancer Society.