› added 4 months ago

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TIL Port Hedland, a tiny little town in North Western Australia, is home to the 2nd largest bulk export port in the world and the #1 highest tonnage port in Australia with annual throughput of over 500 million tonnes of mostly iron ore headed to China.

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y1K8 TIL that in 2010, Pauley Perrette, the quirky goth scientist girl from NCIS had the 3rd highest Q Score (likability) of any actor working, the same as Tom Hanks and Morgan Freeman.
NMj6 TIL George Reeves; the 1950’s Superman, had a young boy point a gun on him to test “Superman’s” Invincibility. Reeves convinced him to put the gun down by telling him someone else would get hurt when the bullet bounced off
Qmwa TIL that long before creating Star Trek, 26-year-old Gene Roddenberry was a co-pilot aboard a Pan Am plane that crashed in the Syrian Desert. With several broken ribs, he helped save 22 people and eventually led them to safety.
6Enr8 TIL Jesse Tafero was executed for two murders he did not commit. At his execution the electric chair malfunctioned, and the wrong sponge for conductivity was used, causing flames to shoot out of his head. The process took 7 minutes. After his execution, Walter Rhodes confessed to the murders.
MeadW TIL in 1996, Russia launched a Mars Rover called "Mars96". It crashed back to earth after 2 days, containing plutonium-238 fuel which would have survived the impact. Nobody ever bothered to look for it, and it's believed to just be lying around the Andes mountains.