› added 11 years ago

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TIL that the Star Spangled Banner’s melody was based off a British drinking song called “To Anacreon in Heaven”.

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via reddit.com

awAQb TIL Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Rube Waddell would often be distracted by shiny things, puppies, and balloons while on the mound. He once ran off the field to chase a fire truck on the way to a fire.
XEldr TIL during the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indi holds up the Nazis with a rocket launcher, an actor appears to swallow a fly during dialog but it actually flew away. Steven Spielberg noticed it and decided it would be funny to cut out a few frames so the fly would not be seen flying away.
R5bQ7 TIL that when The Roots of Heaven was filmed in French Equatorial Africa, there were 900 sick calls from a crew of only 120 people.
KRB4 TIL the use of sunscreen can cause coral bleaching; the main component of sunscreen, titanium dioxide, forms hydrogen peroxide, OH- and superoxides (O2-) in water, all of which contribute to coral bleaching. 10% of bleached coral is estimated to have been caused by sunscreen alone.
X0jjP TIL J.R.R. Tolkien loathed Walt Disney, seeing his work as corrupt, deceptive commercialism. Disney films nauseated him, and he saw Snow White as a vulgar mockery of mythology. He refused to let Disney adapt The Lord of the Rings.