› added 5 years ago

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TIL that DOOM was named after a Tom Cruise quote. Programmer John Carmack said in an interview that the game’s title was inspired by a scene in The Color of Money. Cruise’s character pulls out his custom cue case at a pool hall and someone asks ‘What do you have in there?’ Cruise replies... ‘Doom’

PYY4G TIL Tanks are called tanks because, when they were introduced in WWI, the British were trying to fool the Germans into thinking the weapons were water carriers for the Middle Eastern front of the war.
Qndd TIL that FDR was so tired of the Supreme Court ruling his new laws unconstitutional, that he was going to use a loophole in the constitution to “pack” the courts with as many as 5 new pro-new deal justices. His ploy worked and the court started to rule in favor of his legislation.
0wM1A TIL that the ingredients used by the witches in Macbeth, such as eye of newt and toe of frog, are actually just old terms for herbs, flowers and plants. In particular, eye of newt is the name for mustard seeds and toe of frog refers to buttercups.
Dl6P TIL: Floyd Thompson was the longest held prisoner of war in US history, spending nearly nine years in captivity in Vietnam. When he returned, his wife was living with another man and of his 3 children, only his eldest child barely remembered him. Within 4 years of rescuing, he attempted suicide.
OGKkR TIL That Entertainment Reporter Jeff Sneider threatened to kill himself over him losing a scoop to a woman who reported that Christopher Nolan was set to direct Interstellar