› added 1 month ago

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TIL that in the Academy Awards (Oscars) every year, presenters and performers get gift bags. In 2014, the value each gift bag was reported to be as high as $80k.

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R5YJj TIL the British Empire banned slave trading in 1807 and used the Royal Navy to enforce it. Any ship caught with enslaved people onboard would be fined £100 a head. As a result, captains often ordered them thrown overboard to avoid the fine whenever they saw Royal Navy ships approaching.
kJrN5 Til a micro ecosystem consisting of seeds and insect eggs was sent to the Moon by Chinese scientists. A cotton plant sprouted, but then it died and the experiment ended.
6EVGY TIL When Sacha Baron Cohen was being threatened by the Kazakhstan government with legal action, he replied as his character, Borat: "I'd like to state that I have no connection with Mr. Cohen and fully support my government decision to sue this Jew."
b958N TIL the Nazis were very close to developing plutonium, a material used to make atomic bombs. However, the factory producing it was bombed by a team of 11 Norwegian saboteurs, one of them stopping the operation to find his glasses at one point, completely destroying the equipment related.
LkPWr TIL: To pep up the look of a bland 70s Chicago office building, a design firm in 2013 added a 400-foot-tall map of the city. The modernistic 35-storey map is all gray and black except for the representation of the host building (300 S Wacker Drive) --which is shown in red and lights up at night.