› added 7 years ago

524

TIL when Elon Musk was 28 in the year 2000 he contracted one of the most lethal forms of Malaria while on vacation in South Africa and nearly died, losing 45 pounds and taking six months to recover. He cites this near-death experience as the moment that gave him a renewed focus and energy.

Read more yourstory.com

via ift.tt

b96YZ The rise of Genghis Khan and the Mongolian empire was responsible for the annihilation of an estimated 40 million people, but there were clearly more than a few conquests off the battlefield as well. A 2003 study suggests that 1 in 200 men are direct descendants of Genghis Khan. Studies of Y-chromosome data found that almost 8 percent of men living in the former Mongolian empire carry nearly identical Y chromosomes. Researchers believe this is attributed to a unique set of social selection circumstances put into play by the spread of the Mongolian empire. In this week’s "Today I Learned," research scientist Albert Lin elaborates on Genghis Khan as a romantic.
DQY0V TIL Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of the United States and the face of the US $100 bill, was the first person to write about tofu in English.
QNlD6 TIL President Nixon had a personal valet, Manolo Sanchez, whom he was so close and depended on the two developed a constructed language "sometimes using words that only the two of them understood".
yyEM TIL that the first Canadian casualties of the Afghanistan war were from an American pilot bombing a training exercise.
jGXp TIL In 1981 American Airlines saved roughly $500,000 by removing the olives from salads. Soon afterward, an association of olive growers found out, and threatened to boycott the airline if olives were not restored. AA agreed, and stocked them onboard for passengers who requested them.