› added 12 years ago

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TIL Canadian Mounties started off as the North-West Mounted Police to help protect the aboriginal people from destructive American Trappers.

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xVwe5 TIL that Genghis Khan is not a name, but rather a title which translates to “Ruler of the Universe”.
KYWMR TIL the Chinese yuan, Japanese yen and South Korean won are all synonyms (圓, "round")
X0meQ TIL King George III never visited Hanover despite being its Elector and later, King, and never left southern England in his entire life.
9Yxbr TIL that Costa Rica went 300 days on 100% renewable energy in 2017.
D1evD TIL to combat the spread of smallpox during the Civil War, soldiers would find someone with cowpox, cut open their pustules, and infect themselves with it. The less harmful cowpox made them immune to smallpox, but they sometimes confused cowpox with syphilis and gave themselves an STD instead.