harpers.org

woKJY TIL that in 1994, a 17-year-old boy scout named David Hahn attempted to build a nuclear reactor in a backyard shed at his mother's house in Commerce Township, Michigan. The experiment emitted measurable radiation and the EPA eventually declared the property a Superfund cleanup site.
mxM8R TIL that Saddam Hussein once pranked his guests by adding tabasco to koftas he cooked for them- some of the panicked guests initially fearing that the paranoid dictator had poisoned them.
YpBmZ TIL in 1996, an Boy Scout working on his Atomic Energy badge created the first nuclear reactor ever made by a private US citizen.