› added 7 years ago

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TIL Russell Crowe was once contacted by the FBI about Al Qaeda wanting to kidnap him to take “iconographic Americans out of the picture as a sort of cultural destabilisation plan.” Russel Crowe isn’t American though. He’s originally from New Zealand.

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Ybvd TIL that some scientists believe we are in the middle of a mass extinction event (1 of 6 throughout the history of our planet) and that humans are primarily to blame.
5VOor TIL about the Glass Armonica, a musical instrument invented by Ben Franklin. Inspired by playing glass cups, bowls were mounted on a rotating spindle allowing a musician with wet fingers to play music. Mozart and Beethoven wrote for it but after 60 years strange rumors spread and it fell out of use.
VZJp TIL The song “I Want It That Way” by The Backstreet Boys, which went #1 in 25 countries, has lyrics that don’t make sense because Max Martin, who wrote the song, was still learning English at the time. Kevin Richardson, member of the band, said “Ultimately, the song doesn’t really make much sense.”
nbLW TIL that in 1938 China’s Nationalist government ordered the opening of dikes on the Yellow River to create a flood and slow the Japanese advance to Wuhan. While the advance was delayed, the flood also caused around 500,000 to 900,000 Chinese civilian deaths.
NDEb TIL that Paris is exclusively a twin city of Rome and vise versa. They have the motto “Only Paris is worthy of Rome; only Rome is worthy of Paris.”