› added 13 years ago

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TIL The fake flames on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney are so convincing that the Anaheim Fire Department requested that they be automatically turned off in case of fire so firefighters can fight the real blaze and not waste time battling artificial ones.

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VB444 TIL that the real-life Georg von Trapp of 'The Sound of Music' fame was previously married to Agathe Whitehead, a British-Austrian heiress and aristocrat, and granddaughter of torpedo inventor Robert Whitehead. The couple had seven children from 1911 to 1921. Agathe died of scarlet fever in 1922.
Bge1d TIL that the origins of the Cerne Abbas Giant are unknown. Modern theories include: a depiction of the Celtic god Nodens; a Romano-British depection of Hercules; a 17th century political satire of Cromwell. The famous huge erection may have been added later and definitely merged with the navel.
QKy9 TIL that Alec Guinness, the actor who played Obi-Wan Kenobi in the original trilogy, hated the film and described it as “fairy tale rubbish” and persuaded George Lucas to kill off Obi-Wan because he “couldn’t go on speaking those bloody awful, banal lines” and he “had enough of the mumbo jumbo”.
RLoj TIL That Fanta was created by Coca-Cola as a way of maintaining their market share in Nazi Germany
rR8J0 TIL that in the USA, emails are considered “abandoned” after 180 days. The government can look at these emails without a warrant thanks to the Electronic Communications Protection Act.