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TIL that in 1987 two Brazilian men looking for scrap, unknowinlgy stole a teletherapy unit, along with the highly radioactive Caesium 137 in it, took it home and tried to dismantle it, directly killing 4 and contaminating 250 people in their wake.

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a80yo TIL The 1994 movie Tammy and the T-Rex was conceived when the director Stewart Raffill was approached by a man who had a large animatronic T-rex that he was getting rid of. He asked Raffill if he could make a movie about, who agreed, and wrote the story for the movie within a week.
OoZOe TIL that Washington Irving, who created the first illustration of Santa on his sleigh, was also the creator of the Headless Horseman from Sleepy Hollow.
0w9dv TIL the high opera note in Bohemian Rhapsody was not sung by Freddie Mercury, but drummer Roger Taylor
r984 TIL When an insect tries to eat the leaves of a pineapple, the leaves secrete a digestive enzyme which kills the insect, and then the leaves absorbs the insect for nutrition.
VMMbD TIL there are more tigers living in captivity in the US (at least ~5000, likely much more) than there are living in the wild globally (~3200). Of those ~5000, only ~6% live in zoos and accredited facilities. The rest are privately owned, many living in residential backyards.