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TIL that the British Library is legally required to obtain a copy of every book published in the UK and Ireland, and also purchases a large percentage of English language books published abroad. This equates to an additional 6 miles of shelving each year.

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bNZ TIL The Mars company was a bunch of dicks and denied Steven Spielberg the right to use their product, m&m’s, in E.T. so Reese’s Pieces were used instead. Turns out, the joke was on them because after the movie came out, sales for Reese’s Pieces increased tenfold.
kJLGE TIL that Resident Evil 1 writer Kenichi Iwao conceived of Chris's surname Redfield under the presumption that it's a fictional name entirely of his original creation that nobody has the real world until 2020 when he found out about the then CDC director Dr Robert Redfield in a news report
9wWOr TIL that Pilot FriXion ink is thermo-sensitive, and leave a notebook or homework near heaters or in a car on a hot day can make the ink invisible. To make the text reappear, you can simply put it in a freezer for a short period of time, the ink should reappear at around -10C/14F
D1eZv TIL Seattle's Space Needle is an example of Googie architecture, a type that flourished in the post WWII era and was parodied on The Jetsons. It was named for the West Hollywood Googie's Coffee Shop designed in 1949 by a student of Frank Lloyd Wright.
GYBxQ TIL That Shel Silverstein wrote a book called "Uncle Shelby's ABZ Book" a parody of his other books with a more adult twist. It encouraged kids to do bad things such as give daddy a haircut, Throw eggs at the ceiling, or put sugar in the gas tank through Shel's 'light-hearted' writing style.