› added 12 years ago

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TIL: George Lucas was sure Star Wars was going to flop, so he made a friendly bet with Stephen Spielberg: That if Close Encounters of the Third Kind made more money than SW, he would get 2.5% of the profit for all time, and vice versa. Spielberg still gets enormous, grudging checks today.

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0QEA TIL during WWII a riot broke out between American and New Zealand soldiers when some Americans objected to Maori not drinking in segregated bars.
dMr8 TIL in the 1863, an American aphid infestation devastated France’s grapevines, destroying the entire wine industry. It was only saved by grafting Calif. grape-rootstock onto French grapevines, making them resistant to the bugs. To this day, all French wine-grapes are still grown with American roots.
4XXgN TIL that Skittles are currently made by the chewing gum company, called Wrigley.
1a0GX TIL That the first person to die in the Boston Massacre, and thereby the first person to die in the American Revolution was an African-American named Crispus Attucks
X06PD TIL right to private copying allows in Switzerland to download music, films and e-books through a tax on all storage media. (Art. 19 Abs. 1 lit. a URG). Copy protection can be removed from purchased software (Art. 39a Abs. 4 URG). File sharing and commercial use are illegal.