› added 8 years ago

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TIL that comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided with Jupiter in 1994, after being broken apart from Jupiter’s tidal gravity. One fragment struck the planet’s surface with the estimated energy of 6 million megatons of TNT (600 times the world’s nuclear arsenal) and created a dark spot over 12,000 km across.

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wAl6 TIL- After the Port Chicago explosion, the Navy asked Congress for $5000 to be given to each of the victims’ families. When one congressman learned most of the victims were black sailors, he successfully had the value reduced. To $3000.
neDZ7 TIL that after WWII, a small electronics shop was built in a bomb-damaged department store in Tokyo. The company, Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation, had only $530 and 8 employees. The company invented Japan's first tape recorder and, in 1958, changed its name to Sony.
OkoL TIL that in a US military exercise from 1978 in which jet fighters were pitted against helicopters, helicopters won 5 to 1.
0wovp TIL that there's no words in Spanish that started with the letter W.
nWx0Y TIL about the “Old Man of the Lake,” a 30-foot tall, 450 year old tree stump, most likely a hemlock, that has been bobbing vertically in Oregon's Crater Lake since at least 1896. Moving freely, it can be virtually anywhere on the lake, so boat captains commonly communicate its position for safety.