› added 9 years ago

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TIL The Roman Colosseum had 28 lifts which hoisted animals 24 ft up, then cage lids and trap doors in the arena floor opened simultaneously, unleashing beasts to fight each other or men. A lift was remade last June, ridden by a wolf who received a biscuit when released into the Colosseum.

OX16 TIL President John F. Kennedy was a huge James Bond fan. He viewed an early print of ‘From Russia with Love’ at the White House on Nov 21st, 1963. It was the last film he ever saw, he was killed the next day in Dallas.
PYw1E TIL that in order to hand draw all of the bubbles in The Little Mermaid, the manpower was outsourced to a China based firm, and the finished artwork of the bubbles was kept in a vault blocks away from the demonstration at Tiananmen Square in 1989. This almost delayed the production of the movie.
0d0yN TIL the 2024 Ig Nobel prize in physiology was awarded to researchers who discovered that mammals can breathe through their anuses. This might offer an alternative way of getting oxygen into critically ill patients if ventilator & artificial lung supplies run low.
j06M TIL that the scent of a woman crying triggers a dramatic decrease in levels of testosterone and sexual arousal in the majority of men. And that men are subconsciously able to differentiate between genuine tears, and those that are forced.
nWeOG TIL, The poingnant "Web of Life" Speech supposedly delivered (or written) by Chief Seattle in 1855, was actually an invention of screen writer Ted Perry for the 1972 environmental film Home