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TIL that on December 16, 1965, NASA received a prank transmission from two astronauts: "We have an object, probably in polar orbit... I see a command Module and and eight smaller modules in front. The pilot of the command module is wearing a red suit." They then started playing, "Jingle Bells".

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gdAy TIL the NES light gun worked by detecting flashes of light on your tv screen. When the trigger was pulled, the tv flashed all black for a single frame, then all black with the target white for one frame. Also it only works with CRTs.
j66xp TIL in 2009, a New Zealand man tied a shoelace around his little finger to act as a tourniquet and cut the finger off with a jigsaw. He then cooked it in a pan with some vegetables and ate its flesh. The act of self-cannibalism occurred during an episode of depression.
gk4b TIL In Ancient Sparta boys were punished for not answering questions Briefly and Wittily enough
R555w TIL Cher's 1998 hit "Believe" is the first song to use Auto-Tune. The singer believed her career was hitting "rock bottom," and after hearing a different song with a wobble effect created by a vocoder (a voice effect pedal tool), decided she wanted to create a similar song.
rN1J1 TIL: During the US Civil War, a father issued a writ of habeus corpus to get his underaged Son out of the US Army, when the writ was delivered to the camp, the provost had both the lawyer who had delivered the writ, and the Judge who had issued the writ arrested and imprisoned.