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TIL in 1995, a military factory exploded near Rio Tercero city in Argentina, sending a shell storm that killed seven people and injured over 300, and destroyed parts of the city. It was discovered that the explosion was deliberate to hide evidence of smuggling weapons to other countries.

YPYA TIL Jason Statham got his first film role, in Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels, when Guy Richie spotted him selling dodgy jewellery on the streets of London.
vBpx TIL That there is a star 50 light-years from earth in the constellation Centaurus (BPM 37093) that is pure crystallized carbon, which means it is a dimond that weighs 10 billion trillion trillion carats. Written out that would be 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 carats.
Pd7g TIL that before the Washington Monument was completed, the tallest structure in the US was the 234 foot tall Phoenix Shot Tower, where molten lead was dropped from a platform at the top of the tower through a sieve into a vat of cold water at the bottom, forming perfect spheres of shot.
n5VW TIL America sends Cuba a check every year for the Guantanamo Naval Base lease. The checks are not adjusted for inflation and are made out to the Treasurer General of the Republic, which no longer exists. Fidel Castro only ever cashed one, and stuffed the rest into a desk drawer.
PYeQG TIL 14 year old Nathan Zohner got 43 out of 50 of his classmates to vote on banning Dihydrogen Monoxide for his science fair project, wanting to prove the use of true facts can lead the ignorant public to false conclusions. He won first price.