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TIL In 2012 San Diego's annual Fourth of July fireworks show had a computer glitch, where fireworks programmed for 17 minutes all went off at once (here is one video, there are lots of others; some spectators mad, others ecstatic)

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7r9mM TIL When Michael J Fox gave testimony to the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee in 1999 about his Parkinson's, he deliberately went without medication beforehand to show the effects of the disorder.
J1l1k TIL of Ronald McIntosh. He was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for escaping prison, stealing a helicopter, and landing it at another prison’s exercise yard to pick up his convict girlfriend Samantha Lopez. They were caught 10 days later by the FBI.
6Rxl TIL that when the US Navy refused to provide footage for the film Crimson Tide, the producers waited at the Pearl Harbor submarine base until a submarine left port, which they then pursued with a boat and a helicopter, filming as they went, until the submarine submerged.
16k5W TIL there is a cult on the island of Vanuatu that worships “John Frum”, an unidentified WWII US airman who brought food and other cargo to the island, introducing himself as “John from America”
W7yON TIL Pelagic birds can drink seawater: glands beneath their eyes draw out excess sodium and secrete a highly concentrated salt solution through the nose