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TIL the term Gerrymandering was coined when, in 1812, Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry created a partisan district that looked like a salamander

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jNx1R TIL that during the 1521 siege of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, Hernan Cortes' conquistadors attempted to build a trebuchet. The very first shot went straight up and the machine was destroyed.
78OAZ TIL that there are physical walls separating Protestant and Catholic neighborhoods in Northern Ireland as a way to minimize violence between them.
WLE8 TIL The “Portland Vase”, a wonder of ancient glass work crafted when Augustus Caesar ruled the Roman Empire, was broken in 1845 by a drunken visitor to the British Museum when he threw a sculpture at it.
a8L7A TIL A duel was once fought in Paris where both men were suspended in the air by balloons, trying to shoot each other down.
0w0oA TIL A pair of low power (2-3x), wide-field binoculars can pull in fainter stars while still showing entire large constellations. Observers describe these binoculars giving them 'super vision', as Constellations outlined by fainter 4th and 5th magnitude stars, like Eridanus , pop into view