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TIL: The colony of Virginia, run by the Virginia Company of London, published "Lawes Divine, Morall and Martiall" in 1610-1611. One section required that cursing or speaking disrespectfully of the clergy or company officials be punishable by a bodkin (a type of needle) driven through the tongue.

Read more encyclopediavirginia.org

via reddit.com

5YA4k TIL that when Michael Jackson granted Weird Al Yankovic permission to do "Fat" (a parody of "Bad"), Jackson allowed him to use the same set built for his own "Badder" video from the Moonwalker film. Yankovic said that Jackson's support helped to gain approval from other artists he wanted to parody.
P17YO TIL about Walburga “Dolly” Oesterreich, a woman who, in 1922, claimed her husband was murdered by a burglar. The shooter was actually her lover, Otto Sanhuber, who she’d hidden in her attic for ten years. Due to legal technicalities, neither were found guilty
BgM8W TIL about Kessler Syndrome, which describes the exponential growth of space debris, as collisions between space junk create smaller and difficult-to-track pieces of debris that contaminate our orbital real estate.
KPeJ TIL, In 2001, A man was shot dead while testing a bulletproof potion. He’d asked a witchdoctor to make him invincible to bullets. After applying a potion for two weeks, a fellow villager shot him to check if it worked. He died instantly
gMJpL TIL NORAD's annual Santa Tracker program originated from a child misdialing a Santa Claus hotline in 1955, instead calling a U.S. Air Force Colonel at the Continental Air Defense Command.