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TIL that the term “Boycott” comes from Captain Charles Boycott, an Irish land agent who evicted farmers from their land during poor harvests. His entire town shunned him, leaving him without and goods, mail, etc. He was forced to leave the country later that year.

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0wlpy TIL that American surgeon William Beaumont, the "Father of Gastric Physiology", researched human digestion by putting pieces of food on a string and poking them through an old gunshot wound in his handyman's stomach. He pulled it out on regular intervals to check on how well it had been digested.
P1eQL TIL there are 50-150 murders of "witches" in Papua New Guinea each year. In 2004, some claimed witches had invisibility capes. This accusation coincided with a Harry Potter film reaching the island.
Z8xx4 Space is not empty, nor is it silent. While technically a vacuum, space nonetheless contains energetic charged particles, governed by magnetic and electric fields, and it behaves, unlike anything we experience on Earth. In regions laced with magnetic fields, such as the space environment surrounding our planet, particles are continually tossed to and fro by the motion of various electromagnetic waves known as plasma waves. These plasma waves, like the roaring ocean surf, create a rhythmic cacophony that — with the right tools — we can hear across space.
J1yM4 TIL Bull sharks are euryhaline and can thrive in both salt and fresh water. They are known to travel far up rivers, and have been known to travel up the Mississippi River as far as Alton, Illinois, about 1,100 kilometres (700 mi) from the ocean
pmjO TIL that in 2009, within one month of each other, 16-year-olds in Canada and Taiwan discovered plastic-eating microorganisms that could potentially solve our plastic and styrofoam waste problems.