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TIL that the Indian subcontinent used to be the largest economy of any region in the world between the 1st and 18th centuries

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ZBlR TIL of Joseph Bazalgette, a civil engineer who built an extensive sewer network in London which was instrumental in curbing cholera, typhus and typhoid epidemics. Later he started cleansing Thames.
0d06R TIL that a British-born man from San Francisco named Joshua Norton declared himself "Emperor of the United States" in 1859.
bYQE TIL the first human cardiac catheterization was done by Werner Forssmann who, after failing to get permission from his department chief, anesthetized his arm, inserted a catheter into his vein and threaded it into his heart. He then walked down to the X-ray department and took a picture to prove it
vZVx TIL that according to a treaty signed in 1796 the United States government “is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of [Muslims]”
Da0J TIL Dan Burros a member of the American Nazi Party and later of the KKK committed suicide after he discovered his Jewish background was made public in a New York Times Article