› added 5 months ago

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TIL there was a deadlier martime disaster than the Titanic: the Sultana. Carrying 6 times the passengers than it was alotted, the Sultana sank on the Mississippi river killing over 1,100 Union Soldiers. The tragedy did not receive much attention as it was days after the assassination of Lincoln.

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5YR8R TIL Kaiser Wilhelm II had a series of birth defects, most notably a withered left arm. Treatments for his arm include: salt water sprays, cold compression, electric shocks, stretching, and putting the arm into a fresh animal carcass (Queen Victoria thought this was a bad idea).
JR58 TIL Henry Paget, Cavalry commander at the Battle of Waterloo had his leg blown off by a cannon ball. When it happened he shouted to the Duke of Wellington “By God, sir, I’ve lost my leg!” — to which Wellington replied, “By God, sir, so you have!”
LQD7v TIL that some Bronze Age Anatolians worshipped a god of unclear domain named Santa (no relation)
e0bLL TIL about convicted murderer Norio Nagayama who went on to become an award-winning novelist while in prison. He was executed in 1997.
WalX TIL that Slovakia and Slovenia are mistakenly thought to be each other so often they meet once a month to exchange wrongly adressed mail