› added 5 years ago

61

TIL that, once the Civil War began, Confederate general Robert E. Lee's plantation outside Washington DC was repurposed by the Lincoln administration to house a camp for escaped slaves. It contained a school, hospital, and cemetery, and it is now the site of Arlington National Cemetery.

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N7jY1 TIL the Romans not only built aqueducts and other wonders, but a large amount of dams. In Spain alone they built 72, and many of their dams in Europe are still in use to this day. They were mostly used for irrigation, but one example shows they dried up water in order to find gold deposits.
W7GZ9 TIL The popsicle was invented by an 11 year-old boy when he accidentally left a cup of powdered soda mix with a stirring stick outside on a freezing night
e0ABn TIL that in Singapore some elevators are equipped with Urine Detection Devices that detect the scent of urine, setting off an alarm and closing the doors until the police arrive to arrest the offender!
DQdDp TIL Redheads tend to need more anesthesia than those with darker hair, because of their MC1R gene. This gene not only influences a person's pigmentation, but it's been speculated to also influence their pain perception.
9Y4Wm TIL about 'Wolfskinder' - orphaned German children during WW2 who fled the then East Prussia to Lithuania. They survived hunger, cold and loss of identity. It was estimated that upto 25000 kids were roaming the woods and swamps of these regions after 1945.