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519

TIL that the word explosion is derived from the Latin word explosionem, meaning to drive off through clapping. This is an expression for the Ancient Roman practice of clapping at actors in plays that they didn’t like, until the actor was forced to leave the stage.

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BgbNy TIL that Ginger Spice's (Geri Halliwell) famous Union Jack dress worn at the 1997 Brit Awards was a black mini dress that she thought was boring, so she asked her sister to sew a union jack tea towel to the front of it.
DMAg TIL the first US Warship to be named after a black man was named in 1943 for sailor Leonard Roy Harmon. Harmon worked serving food to officers, one of the few jobs available to black sailors. At the battle of Guadalcanal, however, Harmon deliberately exposed himself to enemy fire to save a shipmate.
VB1PB TIL about the Obliteration Room housed in London where visitors are invited to cover over with stickers to eliminate the traces of the original white room through the act of communal “obliteration.”
EjVd TIL that Antartic explorer George Murray Levick in 1911-12 observed penguins’ sexual habits, which included sexual coercion, sex among males and sex with dead females; as these notes were deemed indecent for publication, he wrote them in Greek so that only an educated gentleman could read them
dDY4d TIL before working together in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Alan Ruck and Matthew Broderick had acted together in the Broadway production of Biloxi Blues. Cameron's "Mr. Peterson" voice was Ruck's in-joke imitation of their former director Gene Saks.