› added 11 years ago

278

TIL as a graduate student at UC Berkeley, mathematician George Dantzig showed up late to a statistics class and mistook two famously unsolved statistics problems as a homework assignment. He solved them and turned them in a few days later, believing his assignment was overdue.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

rReD1 TIL that Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward almost died after a prank by his band. After finding Ward naked and unconscious after a night of heavy drinking, they thought it would be funny to cover the drummer from head to toe in paint. Ward soon became violently ill and had a seizure
mxr7E TIL Nataliya Dmytruk, a Ukranian sign language interpreter, refused to translate false election results on live TV, signing "our President is Viktor Yushchenko. Do not trust the results...they are all lies". Leading to national protests invalidating the election & aiding the Orange Revolution
DnoP TIL that during the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a Russian submarine ordered a nuclear bomb to be launched against America thinking war had broken out on the surface, but was stopped by one man, single-handedly preventing nuclear war
9Yv7p TIL of "Doctor" Linda Hazzard, who in the early 20th century killed at least a dozen patients, who coincidentally had just added her to their wills, by "treating" them with 30-40 day total starvation therapy. At first she couldn't be prosecuted because her patients signed up willingly.
e0MMb TIL of Anthony McAuliffe. He commanded the 101 Airborne Division when it was encircled by the Germans in Bastogne. When presented with a surrender proposal from the Germans, he sent his official reply as "NUTS!"