doomhamster:

feathersescapism:

tilthat:

TIL that airplane pilots would announce that Jonas Salk was on board and passengers would burst into applause. Hotels routinely would upgrade him into their penthouse suites.

via reddit.com

For those who don’t know and don’t want to click thru to find out: Jonas Salk is the reason we in North America no longer live in terror of polio. He also refused to patent or profit from his vaccine. He also spent the last years of his life researching a vaccine for AIDS, long before that was cool and back when a lot of people were secretly hoping it really would just kill all the gays. So you’re damn right people applauded and gave free upgrades.

Reblogging again because this time I did click through, and because of the times in which we live: Jonas Salk was Jewish, and the child of immigrants.