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244

TIL in 1859, during a massive solar storm, telegraph operators in Boston MA unplugged their batteries and were able to send messages to Portland ME using only the auroral current.

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MZJW TIL that during a critical moment in the Apollo 13 mission the Soviet Union discontinued radio transmissions in the frequency bands used by Apollo to prevent radio interference
wbQ7 A Chinese billionaire once charged a $170 million painting to his Amex card just to accrue the points. [NSFW painting]
xVv5 TIL that a psychologist attempted to raise a chimpanzee named Lucy as a human being. One day, he walked into her room and was shocked to find her masturbating to a copy of Playgirl.
yQkAp TIL Tom Cruise himself actually created the character (and the dance) for Les Grossman, suggesting "What about some greedy pig studio executive who really represents the gross part of Hollywood?” because of how much he enjoyed the script of Tropic Thunder and wanted to be in the movie.
GAZmE TIL that the song "Rap God" by Eminem has the world record for highest amount of words in one song, at 4.28 words per second.