Today’s interesting fact is actually two. The first one, Nick already knew about, so I had to think of a second one. The first was:

The Lusitania was sunk during WW1 and is often attributed to being one reason why the US entered the War on the British side. The log of the German u-boat that sank the ship does show who sank the ship, even if there are conspiracy theories that suggest a British u-boat did the deed. However what isn’t very well known is that the ship was carrying munitions and explosives being shipped to the UK, and as such was a legitimate target that the German u-boat then rightfully sank. Apparently the Germans had the information that the ship was carrying the materials.

The second is:

Reed boats were used by the ancient Egyptians, the ancient South Americans, and there is evidence that they were used around the same time in West Africa, the Mediterranean, and Indonesia, and are still used in Peru, specifically Lake Titicaca. The Egyptians used Papyrus reeds, and others used locally sourced reeds.

The interesting thing is that the evidence from pottery, pictures, remains, as well as the boats that are made to this day, is that they look almost exactly the same. Thor Heyerdahl back in the late 60’s successfully took one, the RA 2 from Morocco to Barbados in the West Indies, over 6000 miles. Before he successfully did this archaeologists insisted that a reed boat would decompose and fall apart before such a voyage could be completed.