› added 1 year ago

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TIL the zipper scene from the 1998 film There’s Something About Mary was inspired by a real incident. According to Bobby Farrelly, when he was younger, his sister’s friend used the bathroom and “...zipped himself up. He was in there a long time. My dad had to go in and say, 'Hey, kid. You alright?'"

698XY TIL there's a man-made borehole that drains 100 million gallons of polluted coal mine runoff every day into the Lackawanna River and Chesapeake Bay.
QJQrM TIL that all plants of the same stock of bamboo will bloom at the same time, and then die, no matter where they are in the world. Usually once every hundred years or so.
4XeOw TIL Eddie Deezen, who played a ton of movie nerds in the 70s and 80s and who's role as Eugene in Grease is considered the archetype for the movie nerd, was turned down for a role in "Revenge of the Nerds" because he was "too geeky"
yQvnV TIL: A military psychology tactic in late WW2 was to attach whistles onto bombs. As the bombs fell, they made the terrifying decrescendo whistling sound we think of today. The same sound is often dubbed over every type of bomb in movies and cartoons, despite only being used on a few specific bombs.
LkpeV TIL that the German submarine U-1206 was lost due to a toilet malfunction: the leak flooded the submarine's batteries causing them to release chlorine gas, leaving the Commander with no alternative but to surface. Once surfaced, U-1206 was discovered and bombed by British patrols.