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TIL that physicist Heinrich Hertz, upon proving the existence of radio waves, stated that "It's of no use whatsoever." When asked about the applications of his discovery: "Nothing, I guess."

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JYBJQ TIL that Goodwill sends the clothing they can't sell to textile recyclers, which turns them into sound-proof insulation for cars.
nW9Nr TIL in 1990, telephone company US West replaced 18 push button payphones with rotary dial payphones. The change was made in an effort to curb drug trafficking because most pagers that drug dealers used to conduct business with would only work with calls from push button phones.
95LD TIL the original Ghostbusters trailer featured a 1-800 number, not a 555 number, which led to a prerecording of Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd. They got 1,000 calls per hour, 24 hours a day, for six weeks.
rR77d Coffee makes 30 percent of people poop
BrrNx TIL that Thad Roberts, an intern at NASA, stole roughly $21 million worth of moon rocks from NASA with the aid of his girlfriend. He loaded a 600 pound safe containing ~101 grams of samples and wheeled it out of the complex, destroying 30 years of the chief scientist’s research in the process.