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TIL wooden norias of the Orontes river in Hama, Syria were driven by water flowing underneath them pushing the wheel's paddles. Maintained by skilled carpenters till recently due to lack of money and skilled craftsmen, norias delivered up to 200,000 litres of water per hour to timeshared channels

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XEBnP TIL During the filming of Shaun of the Dead, one of the zombie extras walked up to Edgar Wright, and not knowing he was the director & co writer, whispered in his ear and joked "Oof, straight-to-video for this one!"
rp5x TIL of a prankster, who, in 1976 used curtains to cover up the letters in “Hollywood” to “Hollyweed,” the day the state’s relaxed marijuana law took effect. Also, that Easter he made the sign into “Holywood,” and in 1990 made it to “Oilwar,” to make a political statement against the Gulf War.
mQjy TIL rapper J. Cole was initially a C.S. major in college, but switched out after “after witnessing the life of a lonely computer science professor.”
4XJJo TIL A study conducted on basketball matches looked at the effect of abusive spectators on the performance of players; it noted that when the crowd was being anti-social and abusive, the home team made far more violations than the visiting team.
W7OYd TIL that Michael Jackson's Thriller, estimated to have sold 70 million copies worldwide, is the best-selling album ever. Jackson also currently has the highest number of albums on the list with five, Celine Dion has four, while the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Madonna and Whitney Houston each have three.