A Twitter Record That Has Nothing to do with Justin Bieber

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At the news that terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden had been killed by U.S. forces, Twitter erupted with posts.

The news itself has roots in the microblog, as one of the first public declarations of bin Laden’s death was pushed out in under 140 characters by Navy Reserve intel officer Keith Urbahn. “So I’m told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden. Hot damn.” Cue the frenzy you’re seeing now.

But as the conversation swelled, so did Twitter’s numbers. According to the company, users fired out messages at an average rate of 3,440 TPS – that’s tweets per second – between 10:45 p.m. and 2:20 a.m. ET. At its peak, users clocked in at upwards of 5,100 TPS, the highest rate of sustained tweeting in history.

Tweet on that, Bieber.