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TIL Issac Newton stuck a sewing needle under his eyeball, pushed it all the way to the back of his skull, and wiggled it around to test his theory of optics.

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7ronp TIL an astronomer travelled to India in 1760 to observe Venus. His ship blew off course, and he missed the date. He stayed in India for 8 years to try again, but the sky was too cloudy. When he returned home, he had been declared dead, his wife remarried, his estate plundered, and his job lost
XEpZ6 TIL: Bats compete with one another for food by jamming each other's sonar signals that they use to hunt insects.
7rJQP TIL approximately 140 million cellphones are discarded every year, which would equate to 2,100 metric tons of copper and 3.9 metric tons of gold, among other metals, plastics and glasses
RBMl TIL: A Japanese scientist discovered the jet stream in the 1920s, but it was ignored as he published his findings in esperanto
GvmN TIL Sean Connery’s knighthood was likely blocked by the British Labour Party for two years because of his support for an independent Scotland (he finally got it in 2000 and showed up in a kilt)