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TIL During the Civil War, the workers of Manchester England voted to support the blockade, meaning they’d get no goods for their cloth factories. Lincoln sent a most eloquent Thank You letter.

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RjQ1 TIL that possums and opossums are actually two completely different animals. They share the fact that they are marsupials, but no other relation, and they live on opposite sides of the planet.
XEpaP TIL The King of Siam used to gift albino elephants to courtiers who displeased him, in order to ruin them with the upkeep costs — this is the supposed inspiration for the White Elephant Gift Exchange.
Eg417 TIL there's a syndrome caused by brain injury which causes an obsession with gourmet foods. Symptoms include "Wanting to write, talk, eat, about refined foods".
A7mo TIL there are programs that pay drug addicts to be sterilized
wLyD6 TIL Europeans brought deadly viruses and bacteria, such as smallpox, measles, typhus, and cholera, for which Native Americans had no immunity