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TIL the Ancient Romans had a method for choosing the best puppies out of a litter which involved surrounding a litter with an oil-soaked string and setting it on fire. The mother dog would jump over the ring of flames and rescue each puppy one by one, it was believed, in order of their merit.

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oBdp8 TIL The Walter Reade Organization mistakenly omitting the logo © when renaming George A. Romero's originally titled "Night of the Flesh Eaters" made Night of the Living Dead public domain. Thus, we'll never know how much the film made worldwide from all its unapproved showings, copies and sales.
68JQ TIL two men were brought up on federal hacking charges when they exploited a bug in video poker machines and won half a million dollars. His lawyer argued, “All these guys did is simply push a sequence of buttons that they were legally entitled to push.” The case was dismissed.
XVmj TIL Studio Ghibli adopted a strict ‘no edits’ policy after a disastrous 1985 dub of Nausica of the Valley of the Winds. On hearing Miramax would later try editing Princess Mononoke to make it more marketable, Studio Ghibli sent an authentic katana with a simple message: “No cuts”.
WkY5Y TIL that Henry Rogers and Ron Smyth of the University of Toronto investigated gay lisp, a stereotypical manner of speech associated with English-speaking gay men. In 62% of their cases, listeners correctly identified gay speakers.
9Yy5r TIL Emperor Nero had become so fond of a gladiator called Spiculus, that when he was overthrown in 68 AD, he wanted to die a swift death at the hands of him. But his aides could not get hold of Spiculus in time and Nero took his own life