› added 11 years ago

79

TIL George RR Martin despises fan fiction, saying that it is copyright infringement and a bad exercise for aspiring writers.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

DyRj TIL that there was a tiny 20 soldier Civil War battle in Arizona. Every year the state holds a re-enactment, which has become so popular that the re-enactment typically features significantly more soldiers than the actual battle did.
mxN1E TIL of a rare, endangered marsupial that produces fatal levels of testosterone during 3-week "sex marathons." By the time the babies are born each year, all of the adult males have dropped dead.
9ljG TIL Susan Rice persuaded Bill Clinton to not take Osama Bin Laden into custody in 1997.
eA66 TIL Marie Antoinette’s last words were “Pardon me sir, I meant not to do it”, to her executioner, whose foot she had accidentally stepped on after climbing the scaffold to the guillotine. Also, her body was thrown into an unmarked grave.
bNZ TIL The Mars company was a bunch of dicks and denied Steven Spielberg the right to use their product, m&m’s, in E.T. so Reese’s Pieces were used instead. Turns out, the joke was on them because after the movie came out, sales for Reese’s Pieces increased tenfold.