› added 12 years ago

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TIL for every American soldier killed by enemy combatants, approximately 25 other soldiers ended their own lives.

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16KOP TIL that when a celebratory dinner in honour of recent Nobel Peace Prize winner Martin Luther King Jr. did not garner enough support in his native Atlanta, J. Paul Austin, CEO of Coca-Cola, threatened to pull his business out of the city - within two hours of this announcement tickets were sold out.
abGM TIL Shirley Temple wasn’t told of her friend and fellow actress Dorothy Dell’s death until moments before filming a crying scene
gMN09 TIL that a “thing” was a term used to describe a governing assembly in medieval Saxon and Viking cultures. A thing was presided over by law speakers, and free members of the community were called to attend.
BMdx TIL that in Tron the good characters were originally supposed to glow yellow and evil ones blue, but during production decided to change good to blue and evil to red. Regardless, some of the original coloring scheme remains in the film, e.g. the vehicles.
QNlaL TIL that Denim and Jeans come from the phrases "De Nîmes" (from [the French city of] Nîmes) and "Gênes" ([the French name for] Genoa). Jeans exist perhaps from the late middle ages; all Davis and Strauss did was add rivets.