› added 6 years ago

500

TIL Spider-Man could have been a fly. Stan Lee said "I saw a fly crawling on a wall. And I said, 'Boy, it would be great if I could get a superhero who could stick to walls like an insect.'" He considered "Insect Man, Fly Man, Stick-to-Wall Man, Mosquito Man... none of them sounded good enough."

b9N79 TIL that Déjà rêvé is the feeling of having already dreamed something that you are now experiencing.
yQbOw TIL 10 Downing Street in the 19th Century was guarded by two men who would sit outside the building in leather chairs, armed with a pistol. Each chair featured a drawer filled with hot coals to keep the guards warm, and a sphere-shaped hood to protect from the weather and improve acoustics.
woXYM TIL Byzantine princess Theophano, wife of Holy Roman emperor Otto was resented by the emperor's courtiers for her peculiar habits, including "luxurius tastes", like demanding to take a bath daily and using "a golden double prong to bring food to her mouth", instead of eating with her hands
e0mdL TIL after the failure of the 1986 film "Howard the Duck", George Lucas sold some of his assets to recoup the budget, including a computer-animated company to Steve Jobs. That company would go on to become Pixar.
4XYvN TIL of Clarence Earl Gideon, who from his prison cell in 1962 wrote and mailed a writ of certiorari to the US Supreme Court. The decision from the resulting case required U.S. states to provide attorneys to criminal defendants who are unable to afford their own, per the 6th and 14th amendments.