› added 6 years ago

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TIL Anthony Hopkins is renowned for his preparation of roles, sometimes going over his lines 200 times. In Spielberg's Amistad, he memorised an entire 7 page courtroom speech and delivered it in one go. Because of this, Spielberg insisted on calling him Sir Anthony instead of Tony out of respect

Z8QbR TIL the British Royal Navy has been instructed not to detain pirates of certain nationalities because the punishments for piracy in their home countries would make the pirates eligible for British asylum under British human rights legislation.
rR58e TIL Unit 731 was a secret Japanese Research site in occupied China during WWII. They used thousands of Prisoners as guinea pigs in horrific experiments to breed and develop biological and chemical weapons. After the war, the US overlooked these atrocities in exchange for their records and results
V51k TIL The Nazis had a “Black Book” of notables they wanted rounded up in England after they invaded and conqured that country. Some people included: Sigmund Freud, Virginia Woolf, Bertrand Russell and Violet Bonham Carter, grandmother of actress Helena Bonham Carter.
VMD0k TIL October 31, 2000 was the last time every person in the world was on Earth. Since then, there has been a continuous human presence on the International Space Station.
nkvr TIL that researchers at Yale have demonstrated that human babies might naturally have some sense of morality (as opposed to all moral standards existing only thanks to environmental factors).