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TIL The Wisconsin River used to flow "backwards" into the Great Lakes basin instead of into the Mississippi River.

Read more pbswisconsin.org

via reddit.com

LkE7p TIL of James Hard, a US Civil War veteran who died at 111 years old, living long enough to see both WW1 and WW2. We went from rows of musket fire to nuclear arms within his lifetime.
OoBA1 TIL that when Syphilis first surfaced, the English called it the ‘French disease’, the French called it the ‘Spanish disease’, Germans called it the French evil, Russians called it Polish disease, Poles called it Turkish disease, Turks called it Christian disease & Japan called it 'Chinese pox'
Mb7V TIL A Princeton study found US to be an oligarchy, not a democracy
QNepe TIL that Jason Steele conceived Charlie the Unicorn as a gift for his mother's birthday. Steele had lost his job and most of his possessions in the wake of Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans
KJQR TIL that German architect Herman Sörgel had a plan to build an enormous dam across the Strait of Gibraltar to lower the sea level of the Mediterranean Sea by up to 200 m to colonize new territories and produce huge amounts of hydroelectricity.