› added 10 years ago

199

TIL Kevin Spacey was originally slated to play the president in Independence Day. Studio executives insisted the part be rewritten for Bill Pullman because they felt Spacey was incapable of starring in blockbusters. He won his first academy award 10 months later.

Read more m.ign.com

via reddit.com

7rxV7 TIL that there was a Soviet spy in Congress from 1923 to 1945. Congressman Samuel Dickstein of New York was a paid agent of the NKVD, the precursor to the KGB. While in Congress, Dickstein helped to establish an "un-American activities" committee, which he used to attack suspected communists.
Ew9o TIL that the Royal Navy’s nuclear-armed submarines run on an outdated version of Windows XP called “Windows for Submarines”
Vp00 TIL The skeleton found by Tuco inside the wrong coffin at Sad Hill cemetery in the movie The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, was a real human skeleton. A deceased Spanish actress wrote in her will she wanted to act even after her death.
16ZYP TIL there is a Civil War Diorama museum in Gettysburg that depicts the battle scenes fought by cats.
DRDP TIL that CGI rendering software, used to model gravitational lensing around black holes and wormholes, in the film ‘Interstellar’ was so accurate it’s creation produced three scientific papers and are likely the best visualizations of said effects ever created.