I thought this could be fun, a topic where we can share things that are little known to many people, describing in some detail what it is and giving us a link to a wiki page or otherwise.

To start, I want to talk about Centralia, Pennsylvania.

Apparently, it started out as a mining town, and was quite the little boom town at the end of the 1800s. Now, it is deserted save for 10 residents who refuse to leave.

A fire is currently burning in one of the mine shafts, and has been burning since 1962! According to some thoughts, it's possible it could burn for another 250 years before it goes out.

You can read more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania

The Junior High School I go to is haunted. yep, Park Junior High School is haunted enough to be on a list of haunted places in the Chicago area.
http://www.ghostvillage.com/ghostcommunity/index.php?showtopic=23256

Kosmos 954 was a reconnaissance satellite launched by the Soviet Union in 1977. A malfunction prevented safe separation of its onboard nuclear reactor; when the satellite reentered the Earth's atmosphere the following year it scattered radioactive debris over northern Canada, prompting an extensive cleanup operation.

North American Aerospace Defense Command, which had assigned the satellite the Satellite Catalog Number 10361, noticed Kosmos 954 making erratic manoeuvres, changing the altitude of its orbit by up to 50 miles, as its Soviet operators struggled to control their failing spacecraft. In secret meetings Soviet officials warned their US counterparts that they had lost control over the vehicle, and that the system which was intended to propel the spent reactor core into a safe disposal orbit had failed.

Searches showed debris from the satellite had been deposited on Canadian territory along a 600-kilometre (370 mi) path.

The effort to recover radioactive material from the satellite was dubbed Operation Morning Light. Covering a total area of 124,000 square kilometres (48,000 sq mi), the joint Canadian-American team swept the area by foot and air. All but two fragments recovered were radioactive. These pieces displayed radioactivity of up to 1.1 sieverts per hour, yet they only comprised an estimated 1% of the fuel. "One fragment had the (lethal) radiation of 500 R/h, which is 100 times higher than the maximum annual [per-person] radiation level of 5 rem."