› added 2 months ago

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TIL that while filming Barry Lyndon in Ireland in 1974, director Stanley Kubrick received a phone call alleging that the IRA had him on a hit list and gave him 24 hours to leave the country. He left within 12 hours, with the film being only one-third completed.

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4X5vw TIL that "Blue Blood" as a synonym for royalty, came from Spain following the Reconquista, in which some spanish nobles would show their pale skin, with blue veins showing, as proof that they had never mixed with the Moors who occupied Spain for centuries.
ZpXko TIL the Three Gorges Dam in China slowed down the Earth’s rotation and shifted the pole positioning due to the 10 trillion gallons of reservoir water
amRL TIL that sharks can collapse under their own body weight on land because they lack a rib cage.
5VmB8 TIL that the stationary lifestyle of barnacles makes sexual reproduction difficult, as they cannot leave their shells to mate. To compensate, they evolved to have the largest penis to body size ratio of the animal kingdom: up to eight times their body length.
oRnOR TIL in 1997, a civilian pilot witnessed and reported one of the most widely sighted UFO appearances, the Phoenix Lights. That pilot was actor Kurt Russell, who only learned of the significance of the lights years later when he saw it mentioned on a TV show his wife was watching.