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TIL Dame Judi Dench was in The Chronicles of Riddick, because Vin Diesel wanted to work with her. The writers has to re-create a role to fit her: Aereon, an Elemental alien ambassador. She called filming "tremendous fun", though she "had absolutely no idea what was going on in the plot"

9YVmX TIL The Warwolf, is believed to be the largest trebuchet ever made. It was created in Scotland by order of King Edward I of England, during the siege of Stirling Castle, as part of the Scottish Wars of Independence.
rRmVy TIL in 1921 a group of workers in a fertilizer factory stuck dynamite in a 4.5k lbs block of hardened ammonium nitrate to loosen it up. The resulting explosion killed 500 people, destroyed 80% of the surrounding homes and ripped the roofs off of buildings 15 miles away.
lO4G TIL a 14 year old Japanese boy murdered Jun Hase, his 11 year old classmate at Tomogaoko junior high school and put his head next to the school’s gate “because he felt resentment against the school he has been going to.”
QJklp TIL in Jewish mythology, everyone has an angel teaches them all the wisdom in the world in utero. The angel lightly taps an infant's upper lip before birth, to silence the infant from spilling the secrets. Some say that's how we have the philtrum (the indent between the nose and mouth).
OG6vL TIL JT LeRoy wrote two novels on his tragic childhood, dubbing him a genius of his generation, sparking a race for their film rights. He was friends with celebs like Madonna & Winona Ryder, talking to them for hours over the phone. It turns out JT Leroy didn’t exist and was in fact entirely made up.