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TIL the $327.6 million Mars Climate Orbiter was lost in 1999 due to a unit conversion error. NASA's team used metric units, while Lockheed Martin used Imperial units for calculations, causing the spacecraft to enter Mars' atmosphere too low and burn up.

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JwY4 TIL there is a species of flatworm that after sex, if the female has been filled with unwanted sperm from an undesirable partner, it can double over, put its mouth over its genital opening, and suck the sperm back out. This gives the female control over who fertilises her eggs.
pZRA TIL that Jeffery Dahmer’s father was seconds away from opening a metal box that contained a head and penis of one of Jeff’s victims, but was convinced by his son that the box contained only pornography.
xVJ4B TIL about Wittgenstein's poker: During an argument, Ludwig Wittgenstein, brandishing a poker, challenged Karl Popper to name a single example of a moral rule, to which Popper replied 'not to threaten visiting lecturers with pokers'.
rR6e0 TIL Hollywood Actor James Garner was a decorated Military Veteran who served in WWII and Korea. He was awarded the purple heart twice in Korea, once from a friendly fire incident where he was shot in the buttocks by a U.S. Fighter as he dove into a foxhole. He was given his medal 32 years later.
6mBQ TIL that France banned mentions of Twitter and Facebook on TV and radio, as in “Follow us on Twitter” or “Like us on Facebook” because they were deemed as promotion and unfair to other sites