› added 5 years ago

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TIL that Tom Hanks and Mister Rogers are sixth cousins. In 2019, Tom Hanks played Fred Rogers in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. Days before the movie was released, Hanks found out that they both share the same great-great-great-great-great grandfather.

v1v18 TIL that the term "pipe dream" is a reference to the insane dreams people have when smoking opium
KORKE TIL of 'The Comet', a sci-fi short story written in 1920 by American scholar W.E.B. Du Bois. It tells the story of a Black man and White woman who survive when the population of New York is obliterated. It is credited by many as the foundation for writers of Afrofuturism.
x6Xao TIL in the movie Arachnophobia, the largest spider was a bird-eating spider they named Big Bob, after Robert Zemekis. Big Bob was adopted by a crew member named Jamie Hyneman, who went on to host Mythbusters. The little ones were controlled using a hairdryer and lemon pledge spray.
nevL7 TIL the film inside the SR-71’s camera was five inches wide and two miles long. Once a SR-71 returned, the photo-maintenance division removed the film and cut it into 500-foot long segments. Then they would put on surgical gloves and go up and down the lines, inspecting this massive roll of film.
aG1N TIL that Marvin the Martian was created as a satire of Cold War era Soviets. Marvin is from the red planet, wears red, feuds with Bugs Bunny (who represents the USA) as a parody of the Space Race, is armed with missiles capable of incredible destruction, and has an obsession with global domination.