› added 8 months ago

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TIL after viewing a rough cut of Romancing the Stone & expecting it to flop, the producers of the then-under-development Cocoon fired Robert Zemeckis as their film's director. But RtS was a surprise hit as the 6th-highest-grossing film of 1984 ($115 m) & allowed Zemeckis to make Back to the Future.

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npVb TiL that, during the Iranian Embassy Siege, when given the choice of who from their number would be released, the hostages chose a man whose loud snoring was keeping them awake
DQ7Pv TIL the current head of the Chinese Imperial Family, Jin Yuzhang, had a career as a public servant in Beijing until his retirement at age 66
O74 TIL that More Black Men are in Prison Today than were Enslaved in 1850
AZpB TIL You’re Eight Times More Likely to be Killed by a Police Officer than a Terrorist
KYdWQ TIL researchers have grown brain cells in a lab that have learned to play the 1970s tennis-like video game Pong