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[Not the Onion] The looming Eurasian menace
(hexbear.net)
It's a WaPo article that's a 12 minute read - https://archive.ph/C6mna
The earliest known compasses humans used were called "zhi nan zhen," meaning "south pointing needle." It pointed south. European navigators using the technology inverted this so it would point north.
I guess, but those were really more of a divination tool, rather than a navigational one. They didn't start using them as a traditional compass until the 1100's.