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TIL on Halloween 1992, a BBC mock documentary "Ghostwatch" was mistaken for a real one amongst most of its 11 million UK viewers (receiving 20,000 complaints about its scary content), and was never broadcast again after that experience

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YKyd TIL Charles Darwin suffered from agoraphobia (panic disorder). He suffered constant nausea, trembling, and crying; rendering him virtually bedridden from the age of 30 until his death. His disorder was so severe he even avoided conversations with his own children.
QN0Z6 TIL that Crystal Glass gains its properties from high lead content, making it dangerous to consume food from the 'fancy' crystal glassware
J0dl TIL of Oliver Sipple, who saved then President Gerald Ford’s life from an assassin, was subsequently outed as gay by the press, disowned by his family and ultimately died regretting saving the President
kMDe TIL of The Smokey Bear effect which was an indirect result of the Smokey Bear campaign. The Smokey Bear campaign has been so successful at preventing forest fires that it has allowed trees and debris to pile up on the forest floor, indirectly resulting in forest fires that burn larger and hotter.
5V16D TIL that United Fruit Company, now Chiquita, played a major role in the 1954 Guatemalan coup d’tat after the country redistributed 400,000 acres of uncultivated company land.