26Murderkill River
Murderkill River is a river in Delaware that originally was named "Moeder kille" meaning "Mother River" in Dutch. When the British took over they anglicized the name and added river. Therefore it now means "Mother River River."
27. The Mississippi River was once five miles wide and whales swam up to it from the Gulf of Mexico. The remains of these whales have been found in Michigan.
28. The Amazon River drains so much fresh water into the Atlantic Ocean that surface water at sea can be drinkable up to 200 miles from shore.
29. Yellow River's infamous floods aren’t a simply case of river overflowing its banks and returning to its original course. When uncontrolled, the river changes its course frequently and wildly. Some floods have seen the river's mouth shift as far as 480 km.
30. The Congo River is the deepest river in the world. It is over 750 feet deep in many places (currents make it hard to know how much deeper it is). It also has the most endemic species of any river.
Latest FactRepublic Video:
15 Most Controversial & Costly Blunders in History
31Yellow River Corpses
There are so many corpses to be found in China’s Yellow River that it is lucrative for some to recover them and sell the bodies back to the families of the deceased for $500.
32. The Amazon River once flowed into the Pacific Ocean but was dammed up by the newly formed Andes Mountains. The Amazon's basin then became a giant lake until it eroded sandstone to the west, letting the lake drain into the Atlantic and forming the modern river.
33. Every year in the Mekong River in Thailand, hundreds of fireballs erupt from the surface of the water, and nobody knows what causes them. Locals believe a mythical serpent called Naga spits fire from the water. The event is known as 'Naga Fireballs.'
34. The Caño Cristales River in Colombia is commonly known as the 'River of Five Colors.' It can change its color between yellow, green, blue, black, and red due to its endemic plant species 'Macarenia clavígera' that grows on its riverbed. When the water level rises and sunlight hits the river floor, a vibrant color spectrum is created.
35. River Techa in Russia is radioactive due to the fact that 1000s of tons of nuclear waste was dumped into it between 1949 and 1956. About 23 villages along the river have been evacuated, while half a million people in the region have been exposed to 20 times the radiation suffered by Chernobyl victims.
