› added 6 years ago

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TIL George Lucas asked Toshiro Mifune of Kurosawa fame to be Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader, only to be turned down because he thought it would "cheapen the image of samurai".

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OoXQe TIL that for the English-language version of the Japanese Studio Ghibli movie, Ponyo, the animators had to painstakingly re-draw the lips and mouth movements to properly match the language change - "You don't think of this as being a dubbed Japanese film."
GYpZE TIL that the merging of two black holes in 2015 emitted 3.6 septillion yottawatts of power, greater than the combined power of all light radiated by all the stars in the observable universe
5Vx8Q TIL the term leap year probably comes from the fact that a fixed date in the Gregorian calendar normally advances one day of the week from one year to the next, but the day of the week in the 12 months following the leap day will advance two days due to the extra day, thus leaping over one day.
KOj06 TIL of Franz Reichelt,an Austrian-born French tailor, inventor and parachuting pioneer, now sometimes referred to as the Flying Tailor, who is remembered for jumping to his death from the Eiffel Tower while testing a wearable parachute of his own design
0w9EN TIL pineapple scales form diagonal rows corresponding with numbers in the Fibonacci sequence