› added 8 years ago

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TIL of the HMS Black Joke, which was previously a Brazilian slave ship called the Henriquetta. It was captured by the Royal Navy and repurposed to chase down slave ships, ultimately freeing hundreds of slaves during her five-year career.

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R7Vo6 TIL that a few weeks before the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, US scientists performed a safety test on the EBR-II reactor by disabling cooling pumps and automatic protection systems at full thermal power. The core passively cooled itself as designed without human intervention or damage.
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